WILLIAM GEEENLEAF ELIOT 



WILLIAM GREENLEAF 
ELIOT 

BY 

CHAKLOTTE C. ELIOT 

u 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

JAMES K. HOSMER, PH.D., LL. D. 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1904 



('I 




COPYRIGHT 1904 BY CHARLOTTE C. ELIOT 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



PUBLISHED FEBRUARY I904 



By Transfer 

D. C. Public Library 



WRITTEN FOR MY CHILDREN 
"LEST THEY FORGET" 



The f oUowingSfl ^fiWOafi , oj^i^^f ty years of 
labor in the interest of a higher civilization of 
religion, morahty, and learning has been pre- 
pared in the belief that the facts therein presented 
are worthy of permanent record. Although the 
story is intended primarily as a personal memoir, 
incidentally it relates to events of historical im- 
portance, and depicts life in the West during its 
formative period under conditions that will not 
recur. 

The materials used in the preparation of this 
memoir have been obtained from Dr. Eliot's dia- 
ries, correspondence, sermons, reports, and other 
documents, published and unpublished, in the 
study of which contemporaneous history has 
been consulted. In the diaries occur frequent 
intervals of days, months, and years. The record 
for 1849, the year of pestilence in St. Louis, is 
quite full ; and that from 1861 to the close of 
1862 contains under the head of " Suggestions " 
the original draft of the military order creating 
the Western Sanitary Commission, and of the 



viii PREFACE 

documents issued by that commission during the 
period mentioned. For seven or eight years 
thereafter no journal was kept, and the narra- 
tive relating to this portion of Dr. Eliot's life is 
based on his correspondence. 

The importance of the interests to which Dr. 
Eliot devoted his life suggested individual treat- 
ment of the subjects considered, as conducing to 
clearness and thoroughness of presentation, and 
there are, therefore, separate chapters on church, 
educational, and other work. This method was 
deemed preferable to a strict adherence to chrono- 
logical order in the sequence of events. 

To a proper estimate of Dr. Eliot's influence 
during the period of the Civil War, and of the 
results effected by him in aiding to save Missouri 
to the Union, an historical sketch proved essen- 
tial. The same treatment was for similar rea- 
sons accorded to the account of his agency in 
establishing and directing the work of the West- 
ern Sanitary Commission. The history of this 
latter organization has been given more in detail 
because of popular ignorance on the subject. 
There are many historians to chronicle the san- 
guinary conflicts of war, but few who deem its 
humanities worthy of portrayal. The facts upon 
which this narration is based were obtained from 



PREFACE ix 

the original record book of the Commission, and 
from reports issued by its secretary during the 
holding of the Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair, 
which reports were completed and issued in book 
form at the close of the Civil War. The book 
referred to is simply a collection of reports, and 
contains many uninteresting details. It was the 
hope of the gentlemen composing the Board of 
the Western Sanitary Commission that the secre- 
tary. Rev. J. G. Forman, would at some time re- 
write the account of the work of the Commission 
in more attractive literary form, but he did not 
live to accomplish the task. 

In preparing this memoir the writer has taken 
especial satisfaction in presenting Dr. Eliot's 
work in the cause of emancipation, as for many 
years his conservative attitude was misunderstood 
and misconstrued by persons of more radical 
ideas. As a matter of fact he expressed in the 
pulpit and on the rostrum sentiments that would 
have entailed swift retribution if uttered in the 
heat of debate by one less honored and respected. 
Impassioned but never passionate, he appealed 
to the reason and conscience, and men could not 
gainsay him. 

A man of deep and tender affections, whose 
intensity of feeling was only equaled by his 



X PREFACE 

strong power of self-control, Dr. Eliot was reti- 
cent in the expression of his own emotions. This 
reserve has heen respected by his biographer, 
who beheves that a record of his deeds is a suf- 
ficient revelation of character. To the youth of 
the present generation may be commended the 
Christian zeal, the moral enthusiasm, the exalted 
patriotism and lofty example of men like William 
Greenleaf Eliot and his co-workers, the rich har- 
vest of whose labors it is theirs to reap. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB PAGE 

Introduction . xv 

I. Early Life . . . . . . . 1 

II. Ministry 31 

III. Education — Public Schools .... 66 

IV. Washington University . . . . 80 
V. Washington University (continued) . . 98 

VI. Gradual Emancipation 126 

VII. Missouri during the Civil War . . . 152 

VIII. Emancipation as a War Measure . . 182 
IX. Organization and Work of the Western 

Sanitary Commission 212 

X. Western Sanitary Commission (continued) 241 

XI. The Negro in the Reconstruction Period . 279 

XII. Social Reform 299 

XIII. Sermons and Other Writings .... 324 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

Portrait op William Greenleaf Eliot at the age 

OF 24 . . . . . . . . Frontispiece 

From a water color portrait painted about 1835. 

Portrait of Dr. Eliot at the age of 43 . . .82 
From a daguerreotype taken about 1854. 

Portrait of Dr. Eliot at the age of 74 . . . 148 
From a photograph taken about 1885. 

Memorial Tablet to Dr. Eliot in the Unitarian 

Church at St. Louis 358 

Robert Bringhurst, Sculptor. 



INTRODUCTION 



Just seventy years ago there appeared in the 
city of St. Louis a minister, twenty-three years 
old, whose subsequent career was sufficiently 
remarkable to make it fitting that it should be 
written down. Of New England birth but reared 
in Washington, D. C, he returned as maturity 
approached to New England to complete his edu- 
cation. Then, fresh from the Harvard Divinity 
School, he took up his life-work as the first ex- 
ponent of the Unitarian views west of the Mis- 
sissippi. Through both father and mother he 
came of honorable lineage ; his brothers and sis- 
ters were persons useful and distinguished ; his 
own career from the first was worthy of such 
antecedents and relationships. 

Dr. William Greenleaf Eliot was for thirty- 
nine years pastor of the Church of the Messiah 
in St. Louis, a pastorate remarkably successful. 
Aside from his ministrations to his flock, he made 
his influence felt in the community in many 
ways. Few projects of moment, having in view 
the elevation of society, could in that time be 
named, of which he was not the originator or an 
effective helper from the start. He was the friend 
of the poor and oppressed of every land and 



xvi 



INTRODUCTION 



complexion, in particular of the negro. Under 
slavery he mitigated, so far as his great influence 
extended, the hard lot of the blacks. Though 
having no part with the extremists who declared 
the Constitution of the United States to be " a 
covenant with death and an agreement with hell," 
he was actively anti-slavery, and from the out- 
break of the Civil War was zealously loyal. In 
the Western Sanitary Commission, which came 
into existence through his suggestion, he was 
always a leader in collecting and applying the 
millions which flowed through its channels to the 
relief of the soldiers in the field. His youngest 
brother, a gallant officer, was killed at Chancel- 
lorsville at the head of his men. His brother 
Thomas, in Congress, became conspicuous for 
wisdom and abiHty in the difficult time of recon- 
struction. WilHam, in Missouri, played a part not 
less honorable and important in carrying through 
the struggle and in bringing to pass afterward a 
proper settlement. Lincoln and his cabinet offi- 
cers and generals received his advice with respect. 

In particular. Dr. Eliot's interest was great in 
education. The first free school west of the Mis- 
sissippi was begun under his direction, and no 
one deserves more than he to be regarded as the 
father of the pubHc school system in Missouri. 
Washington University, a cluster of educational 
institutions conceived after the broadest stan- 
dard, containing at the present moment thousands 



INTRODUCTION 



xvii 



of pupils, provided with structures among the 
finest in the world, and possessing an endowment 
of several millions, came into existence through 
the efforts of the group of men of whom Dr. 
EKot was the centre and inspiration. He was 
president of the board of directors of Washing- 
ton University from its establishment; and in 
1873, having resigned his pastorate of the Church 
of the Messiah, he became its chancellor. Hence- 
forth, until his strength failed, he gave himself 
up mainly to the direction of the institution, 
showing always a rare wisdom and devotedness. 
Dr. Eliot was perhaps over-ready to sacrifice the 
interests of individuals in furtherino^ the welfare 
of institutions and causes which he deemed im- 
portant, but he always laid himself first upon the 
altar. Full himself of the spirit of seK-sacrifice, 
he demanded it from others, and remarkable in- 
deed was the consecration to high ends of means 
and energies brought to pass through incitements 
proceeding from him. In particular he was zeal- 
ous for his university. For this he well-nigh im- 
poverished himself, while at the same moment 
giving his time and powers unremittingly to its 
administration. If it stands to-day magnificently 
appointed, abounding in endowments, sought by 
thousands of pupils, a culmination of sweetness 
and light, let not the man be forgotten who laid 
its corner-stone and watched over its small begin- 
nings. Of all the worthies of early New England, 



xviii 



INTRODUCTION 



not one possesses so brilliant and desirable a 
fame as the young minister who, by a bequest 
of £400 and his library of two hundred and 
sixty volumes to a school struggling into life, 
associated his name forever with our proud- 
est seat of learning. What John Harvard did 
for Cambridge bears no comparison with what 
William G. Eliot did for Washington University. 
The moneyed gift of the latter was much more 
than fifty-fold that of the early dying Charles- 
town pastor, even measured by the changed 
standards of the present day ; and there was, 
besides, the faithful service during the period 
of a generation. The present writer remembers 
hearing General W. T. Sherman, for many years 
the friend of Dr. Eliot, and cognizant of his 
great work, express regret that the university 
did not bear his name. Others have felt the same 
regret. It would be at any rate the height of 
injustice if his service to it were overlaid and 
forgotten ; and it is a subject for rejoicing that 
the detailed story of his work for Washington 
University, as also of his other work, now at last 
finds a proper presentment in the excellent book 
which follows. 

Dr. Eliot was a man of quite unusual versa- 
tility. He attained eminence as a preacher and 
educational organizer. The fine literary finish of 
everything he wrote makes it certain that, had 
he so chosen, he might have succeeded as an 



INTKODUCTION 



xix 



author. In affairs he was full of enterprise and 
possessed excellent judgment. " If I could have 
had Dr. Eliot for a partner/' said an able man 
of business once, " we should have made most 
of the money west of the Alleghanies." He pos- 
sessed, moreover, a certain firmness of will, quick- 
ness of perception, self-reliance and balance, that 
no circumstances could disturb, and, withal, a 
dauntless courage, which, had fate so willed it, 
might have made him a brilliant soldier. 

Dr. Eliot was short of stature and of delicate 
frame. For many years his work was done in the 
midst of constant suffering. The contrast was 
almost pathetic between the smallness of his phy- 
sical resources and the magnitude of the enter- 
prises which he dared to undertake. But there 
was no inadequacy. His conquering spirit sus- 
tained and supplemented everywhere his feeble 
body. Every important work to which he put 
his hand was carried throug-h to success. This 
activity, so long-continued, so effective, so benefi- 
cent, has waited long for its record. Now that 
the record appears, it should meet with a warm 
welcome. 

James K. Hosmer. 



WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



CHAPTER I 

EARLY LIFE 

In the year 1812, New Bedford was a seaport 
town with a foreign trade, extensive for that 
period. Its commercial prosperity, however, re- 
ceived a sudden check from the embargo on 
American shipping, a result of the war between 
England and America. Trading vessels lay idle 
in the harbor, a losing investment for their 
unfortunate owners. 

Among those who thus suffered great finan- 
cial loss was William Greenleaf Eliot, merchant 
and shipowner, then a young man thirty-one 
years of age. In 1807 he had married his cousin 
Margaret Dawes, ten years his junior, and had 
settled with his young wife in New Bedford, as 
their future home. In 1812 he was the father of 
three children, of whom the youngest, William 
Greenleaf Eliot, Jr., had been born the previous 
year, August 5, 1811. 

At the beginning of his married life William 
Eliot, Senior, had every reason to look forward 



2 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



to a prosperous business career in New Bedford, 
but when reverses of fortune came he bore them 
with religious fortitude and philosophic resigna- 
tion, neither subdued nor discouraged. He re- 
solved to seek elsewhere some new avenue of 
employment, and removed with his family to 
Baltimore. From there he later went to Wash- 
ington, D. C, in which city he received an ap- 
pointment as chief examiner in the auditing 
office of the Postal Department, a position which 
he retained for thirty-five consecutive years. 

From both parents, and a more remote ances- 
try, William G. Eliot, Jr., inherited decided 
traits of character. His great-grandfather. Rev. 
Andrew Eliot, pastor of the old North Church 
in Boston, was an earnest and zealous minister, 
possessing strong convictions of duty, and keenly 
alive to the responsibilities of his calling. When 
offered the presidency of Harvard College, he 
refused the appointment, believing it wrong to 
relinquish his vocation for any other, however 
honorable. 

Samuel Eliot, the son of Andrew and grand- 
father of William G. Eliot, Jr., was a young man 
of great promise, who died at the early age of 
thirty-six years, leaving a wife and five children. 

Margaret Dawes Eliot, mother of William G. 
Eliot, Jr., was a woman of strong intellect and 
unusual force of character. She belonged to a 
family conspicuous in the early annals of Boston. 



EARLY LIFE 



3 



Her grandfather. Colonel Thomas Dawes, was 
always active in public affairs. He filled in turn 
the offices of representative, senator, and coun- 
cilor in Massachusetts. He was considered one 
of the first great mechanics of Boston, being by 
trade a mason, which at that period seemed to 
represent a combination of architect, builder, and 
mason. As architect of the Brattle Street Church, 
he laid the corner-stone, and did half the mason 
work in addition to designing the building. He 
was also supervising architect of the State House. 
It was said of him that "he was a high patriot," 
and the Tories nicknamed him in derision " J on- 
athan Smoothing Plane." He took so conspicu- 
ous a part in the early events of the Revolution 
that he became obnoxious to the royalists, and 
his house on Purchase Street was sacked by the 
British troops before they left Boston. 

In 1786 he was one of the deacons of the Old 
South Church, and his "venerable appearance, 
grave deportment, rich dress, and silver locks " 
are said to have given him an impressive appear- 
ance as he walked up the broad aisle every Sun- 
day. A curious epitaph on his monument at 
King's Chapel thus begins : — 

" Of his taste for the Grecian simplicity 
In architecture there are many monuments 
Which he raised when that art was new to us." 

Judge Thomas Dawes, son of Colonel Thomas 
Dawes, Senior, and grandfather of William G. 



4 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

Eliot, Jr., sat for ten years, from 1792 to 1802, 
on the bench of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. 
From 1802 to 1825, when he " died full of hon- 
ors," he was Judge of Probate. He also sat for 
twenty years on the municipal bench of Boston. 
In an account given of him in a book entitled 
" Boston Orators," he is described as " a small 
man, but very eloquent." It is related of him 
that, on one occasion being present at a gathering 
where there were many large men, he was asked 
how he felt. " Like a silver shilhng among cop- 
per pennies," he quickly ansAvered. 

Through two lines of descent William Green- 
leaf Eliot, Jr., was a great-grandson of WiUiam 
Greenleaf, one of whose daughters married Sam- 
uel Eliot, and another Thomas Dawes, Jr. A third 
daughter married Judge William Cranch, the 
future father-in-law of William Eliot, Jr. The 
Greenleafs were a Huguenot family, who emi- 
grated from France to England, and thence to 
America. 

WilHam Greenleaf, a stanch Whig, was ap- 
pointed sheriff of Suffolk County, including Bos- 
ton, in 1775. He succeeded his elder brother, 
who was a Tory. As sheriff of Boston, it was 
his duty to read the Declaration of Independence, 
from the balcony of the old State House, in 
July, 1776. On this joyful occasion "the beUs 
of the town were rung," and every sign that 
belonged to a Tory taken down for a general 



EARLY LIFE 



5 



conflagration on King Street, now State Street. 
Judge William Cranch told his family that on 
that day his cousin, John Quincy Adams, and he, 
then boys of nine and seven years of age, were 
playing in the garden of their residence near by. 
Hearing the noise in the street, they ran out 
barefooted as they were, to see what was going 
on. When in the crowd, some men lifted them 
up that they might see and hear. Judge Cranch 
said that Wilham Greenleaf, the high sheriff of 
Suffolk County, began to read the Declaration 
of Independence. The people cried out that he 
must read louder. He raised his voice, but the 
cry was repeated : " Read louder ! louder ! " and 
he then handed the paper to Colonel Thomas 
Crafts, who had a strong, powerful voice. 

William Cranch, this same boy of seven, was 
in the lapse of time to marry the daughter of 
WilHam Greenleaf. 

Active in public affairs, interested in the com- 
mon weal, good citizens and men of unblemished 
character, the ancestors of William Greenleaf 
Eliot, Jr., left to their descendants a nobler heri- 
tage than riches. 

When ¥/illiam G. Eliot, Senior, removed to 

ashington, it was to spend there the remain- 
ing measure of his days. He resigned his office 
under the government, April, 1853, stating that 
he felt " the infirmities of age pressing so heav- 
ily" upon him as to "make it proper to retire 



6 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



to private life." He was then seventy-two years 
of age, and died in December of that same year, 
a few days before his seventy-third birthday. Of 
his family of eight children, three sons and three 
daughters lived to mature age. 

After his early reverses of fortune, he was 
never a wealthy man. With some self-sacrifice 
on his own and his wife's part, he gave to his 
children all the advantages of education that 
could be procured, Mrs. Eliot herself aiding in 
their instruction. Theirs was a household in 
which the accidents of wealth were not missed, 
so long as there remained the essential elements 
of mental and spiritual progress, — books, edu- 
cation, social intercourse, and the inspiration of 
noble ideals. 

Home influences tended to enhance the natu- 
ral earnestness of disposition which was always 
a predominant trait in the character of William 
G. Eliot, Jr. In his boyhood he was sent to New 
Bedford because of its educational advantages, 
and there attended the Friends' Academy. One 
of his schoolmates, referring to his school days 
there, wrote: "His influence was felt in the 
whole school, young as he was. He had great 
earnestness as well as dignity. He appeared 
more advanced in every way than other boys, 
and yet there never was sweeter hilarity and joy. 
He was as eager to help us in our May-day festi- 
vals given in the woods, as he was devoted to 



EARLY LIFE 7 

study. His manners were as formed then as in 
later years. None ever felt the rude boy." 

Columbian College, of Washington, D. 
received its charter from Congress in 1821. An 
old certificate of scholarship, yellow with age, 
certifies that there was received of William G. 
Eliot one hundred and thirty-four dollars and 
sixteen cents, principal and interest on this cer- 
tificate. This entitled the subscriber to " twenty 
collegiate years' tuition." Truly a generous re- 
turn for a small outlay ! From the indorsements 
on the back of the certificate of William G. 
EHot, Senior, we find that his eldest son, Thomas 
Dawes Eliot, received tuition at the college from 
1823 until the close of 1825, and William Green- 
leaf Eliot, Jr., from 1826 until 1830, when he 
graduated. 

For one year after graduation William G. 
Eliot, Jr., was employed in the Postal Depart- 
ment at Washington, D. C, serving as assistant 
clerk in the chief examiner's room. In an ad- 
dress, delivered nearly half a century later, he 
related a curious circumstance which seems to 
have first awakened in him the desire to make 
St. Louis his future home. He stated that, dur- 
ing this period of his clerkship in Washington, 
whenever he opened the quarterly returns from 
St. Louis, " carefully served up in a doeskin by 
Wilson P. Hunt, postmaster," he was accustomed 
to read the Missouri " Republican " containing 



8 . WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

the dead-letter list, and determined that if ever he 
went West, St. Louis would be the resting place. 

In 1831 Mr. Eliot entered the Cambridge 
Divinity School as a student. So fitting in his 
case seemed this choice of a profession, that it 
would be difficult to imagine an alternative. His 
parents approved of his desire to enter the min- 
istry, and his father thus wrote to him soon after 
he reached Cambridge : " I rejoice more and 
more that your choice of a profession is what it 
is. I am sure your prospect of happiness in this 
life is greater than it could be in any other pro- 
fession, and as it has been made voluntarily, and 
from conviction, I am sure you never will regret 
it." 

The three years spent at the Cambridge Di- 
vinity School seem to have been a period of al- 
most unalloyed happiness. Congenial pursuits, 
the companionship of fellow-students having the 
same interests, and the delightful social inter- 
course of Cambridge and Boston, were keenly 
enjoyed. Between William Greenleaf Eliot and 
J ames Freeman Clarke, one year his senior, there 
was formed one of those friendships, as rare as 
they are beautiful, which are founded on mutual 
love, esteem, and respect, and continue through- 
out life. James Freeman Clarke graduated one 
year in advance of his younger friend, and set- 
tled in Louisville, Kentucky. A correspondence 
then began, frequent for the first few years, and 



EARLY LIFE 



9 



lasting, with longer intervals between the letters, 
throughout the lifetime of William Eliot. These 
letters of his friend, Mr. Clarke once character- 
ized as " affectionate, playful, wise, and tender." 
Each of the two men carefully preserved the let- 
ters of the other, but so intimate was the relation 
between them, so unreservedly did each express 
to the other his inmost thoughts, his spiritual 
doubts, his hopes and aspirations, that we almost 
shrink from reading this revelation of one soul 
to another. Especially is this true of the earlier 
correspondence. 

Of their student life while at the divinity 
school. Dr. Clarke thus spoke in a memorial 
sermon, delivered after the death of Dr. Eliot : 
" Wilham Henry Channing, William Greenleaf 
Eliot, and I saw each other every day, and our 
conversation was on the most important themes. 
Wilham Eliot was more practical, William Chan- 
ning more ideal. Like all sincere souls, each of 
these men valued in the other that in which the 
other excelled himself. Already devoted to all 
philanthropies, William EHot sometimes con- 
demned that I should think it worth while to 
read as much as I then did of German poetry 
and philosophy. His own time was largely occu- 
pied in visiting the poor and the prisoners, and 
in examining the working of asylums and hos- 
pitals. . . . But his power of self-judgment and 
self -adjustment showed itself even in this; for 



10 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



one day he asked me to give him some profound 
work of German philosophy to read, ' for/ said 
he, ' I need to balance all this external work with 
some hard study.' I suggested Fichte's ' Bestim- 
mung des Menschen ' (Destiny of Man), which I 
had just read. He went through it in the same 
exhaustive way in which he did everything, 
making himself master of the argument, and 
some years after he told me he thought that 
was about the best thing he did in the divinity 
school. In a letter written to me from Cam- 
bridge, in 1833, he says, ' You cannot tell how 
much I feel the need of deep, abstract study. I 
feel drawn as by a strong cord to German. I am 
now reading Fichte's sun-clear account of his 
system. English books seem too much on the 
surface, while principles are what my nature 
craves.' He saw that there is nothing more prac- 
tical than life fed from deep thought." 

At this period William Eliot was much inter- 
ested in German philosophy. He wrote to Mr. 
Clarke again : " I am reading Madame de Stael 
on German philosophy. I am delighted with it. 
German philosophy is the bugbear of oar fire- 
sides, and is almost another name for infidelity ; 
yet if the learned are ever redeemed from skep- 
ticism, it must be by its influence. The foun- 
dations of my religion are tenfold stronger than 
they were a year since, and I feel that I stand 
on a rock. My earnest prayer is that German 



EARLY LIFE 



11 



literature and science may have free course among 
us." 

In 1833-34, William Eliot read Goethe exten- 
sively, both in the original and translations. " Wil- 
helm Meister," especially, he read and re-read 
several times, declaring that he was enraptured 
with it. Herein he showed his humanitarian bias, 
for what most delighted him in the book was 
the wonderful knowledge of human nature in 
all its phases and modifications, — the perfect de- 
velopment in Wilhelm of the spiritual philoso- 
phy." For every sentiment expressed in the book, 
he " found some response in himself," although 
he acknowledges that his opinion of Goethe is 
rather mixed, on account of the frequent appear- 
ance of sensual tendencies and feehngs. " Yet," 
he exclaims, " why find partial and perhaps un- 
founded faults where there is so much to ad- 
mire? It is a great book. How famihar is its 
author with the most undefined shades of human 
thought, and the secret workings of the religious 
heart, and the early dawning and the gradual 
growth of the spiritual and divine in the soul." 

The philosophy of Goethe, William Eliot did not 
always find congenial with his feelings. There 
was occasionally something akin to "practical 
atheism," a " sort of chance or fate," which, al- 
though it might not be a part of his philosophy, 
could not be altogether foreign from his, Goethe' s^ 
mind. 



12 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



Nothing is more characteristic of William 
Eliot's work as a student than his desire to dis- 
cover and accept truth wherever found. Yet 
always with discrimination he tried to separate 
the tares from the wheat, the true from the false, 
and remain steadfast in his central religious con- 
victions. To Mr. Clarke, in 1833, he thus wrote : 

The longer I live, every additional day, I see 
more of the importance of a real faith in the 
existence of truth. I have come to the decided 
opinion that there is one Philosophy, one Eeligion. 
What they are, God only knows. Every consid- 
eration leads me to think that there is one stream 
of truth, which is from and to eternity, deep, pure, 
and spiritual — to which every soul tends, and 
will reach sooner or later. It is this behef which 
is of the essence of religious faith, for he who 
recognizes the existence of anything permanent 
and spiritual must be religious." 

Among so many systems of philosophy, amid 
so much theory and speculation, where shall truth 
be sought and found? William Eliot thus ex- 
presses the conclusion at which he has arrived : 
" For my own part, I believe the path of duty, in 
its widest sense of religion, of usefulness, is the 
very path which soonest leads to the love and 
perception of truth." 

For William Eliot, who had already decided to 
be an evangelist, a missionary, this " path of 
duty " was to lead to what was then a distant out- 



EARLY LIFE 



13 



post of civilization, away from the world of books, 
and removed from the sympathetic intercourse of 
his fellow-workers in the Unitarian denomination. 
He loved these things not less than other men, 
but his Christian zeal, his desire to do good, led 
him where he was most needed. Who can say 
that for him the path of duty was not the path 
which soonest led to the love and perception of 
truth ? 

Among William Eliot's friends at Cambridge 
was included the revered and beloved Henry 
Ware, teacher, counselor, and friend. Dr. Chan- 
ning was then pastor of the Federal Street Church, 
which Mr. Eliot must have attended, since he later 
referred to him as his minister. He regarded Dr. 
Channing with great reverence and affection, and 
seems to have been strongly influenced by him in 
his early religious views. He was also much at- 
tached to Dr. Channing's colleague. Dr. Gannett. 

William Eliot always found a welcome awaiting 
him in the hospitable home of Dr. James Free- 
man at Newton. Of this home Dr. De Normandie 
said that it was a home of " intellectual activity, 
of human interests, and of a spiritual atmo- 
sphere," all of which made it most congenial and 
attractive for a young man who thirsted for the 
sympathy he there found. 

Other friends there were, among them Marga- 
ret Fuller, whom Mr. Eliot greatly admired. He 
wrote to his friend Mr. Clarke that he had spent 



14 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



a delightful evening in conversation with her, 
and again he referred to her as being " as witty 
and intellectual as ever." 

The first sermon which William Eliot delivered 
in his course at the divinity school was charac- 
teristic of his future work, for the subject was 
"Philanthropy." He wrote Mr. Clarke that he 
had the assurance to preach to the school " as if 
they had been any one else." He added that, 
" having come to the conclusion that we should 
do all we can and sacrifice everything," he " left 
them to their reflections." 

While at the divinity school Mr. Eliot decided 
to begin his ministry at some distant point, prob- 
ably in the West. This desire was increased when 
in 1833 his friend Mr. Clarke was settled over 
the Unitarian Church at Louisville, Kentucky. 
William Henry Channing seems to have consid- 
ered going to St. Louis, but decided against it. 
This action William Eliot deplored. In August, 
1833, he wrote to Mr. Clarke : " I wish you would 
tell me something of what the prospect in the 
West is for us young, ambitious preachers. Is it 
on the whole a good field for useful labor ? I 
hear that at St. Louis a parish is getting together ; 
is it true, and what about it ? " Again, in Decem- 
ber he wrote : " Next Christmas I shall spend in 
the North, South, East, or West — God knows ! 
I wish it might happen to be in your vicinity. 
If you will remain at Louisville, I will come to 



EARLY LIFE 



15 



St. Louis, or some nearer place." In those days 
of travel by stage-coach, or along- streams ob- 
structed by sand-bars, St. Louis was much more 
distant from Boston than is London now, count- 
ing by the time required to make the journey. 
It is evident that William Eliot realized the sacri- 
fice involved in going there, for he again wrote 
to Mr. Clarke in February : " What matters it if 
the few years of life be spent in cities or in a 
wilderness. ... I am doubtful, but very decided. 
... I must know more what is the prospect of 
success — what the character of the people — the 
probable number of Unitarians to begin with — 
the peculiar discouragements, etc. . . . Say de- 
cidedly ^ You can succeed, — you have the requi- 
site ability,' and if I know myself, I will come. 
The self-sacrifice, though it sometimes comes over 
one like a cold hand on the heart, in general 
means nothing at all. Let them know in some 
way that a youngster is ready to come there to 
live, to spend his life among them if they will 
provide food and lodging — for if I come, I come 
to remain, and to lay my ashes in the valley of the 
Mississippi." 

Two weeks later he again wrote : " When I 
look at those youths who are candidating here- 
abouts, the bare possibility of my becoming one 
of them is a strong jog like a voice : ' Arise ! 
Get thee out of thy country and from thy kin- 
dred to a land that I shall show thee.' Mr. Ware 



16 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



has said that he thinks me well suited to the 
task of pioneering, and for myself I believe my 
mind is made up. I have written home to the 
like effect, and am expecting letters of condo- 
lence ; they will more probably be of encourage- 
ment, for my parents are not of a sort to stand 
in the way of even a youthful and enthusiastic 
project of usefulness." 

The answer came in a letter from his father, 
dated March 18. He acquiesced in his son's de- 
cision, as was to have been expected, although 
he did not entirely approve. " I would rather," 
he wrote, " if circumstances permit, have you re- 
main in Cambridge another year. ... I can see 
that there would be some advantage to you in 
having you depend entirely on your own mental 
resources, but before drawing on them so liber- 
ally as you would be obliged to do in the far 
West, you should have a good stock provided. 
In that new country you would want counselors 
and a library, and your labors would be very 
heavy. ... I would have you weigh the matter 
well, consult friends who can assist your judg- 
ment, and pray for assistance from above, and 
my son, whatever your final determination in 
the matter may be, I shall bid you Godspeed, 
and will in every way give you assistance." 

In his ultimate decision William Eliot, Jr., re- 
ceived the blessing of his parents, if not their 
entire approval. To the enthusiasm of youth, 



EARLY LIFE 



17 



difficulties seem and are less insurmountable than 
they appear to the cooler judgment of age. From 
a letter to Mr. Clarke, however, it is evident that 
the young divinity student had begun more fully 
to realize what was before him. He wrote : " To- 
day I have had conversation with Mr. Goodwin, 
who was in St. Louis, and he gives me encourage- 
ment to go. He says I shall find society enough 
to be happy in, and that it depends on me 
whether I succeed or not. There are enough to 
begin with who are ready to do what they can 
to support a Unitarian minister, but the arduous- 
ness of the situation is greater than I thought, 
if the society there is so mixed. I think I shall 
go, but am anxious to learn more." 

In this spirit of self -consecration, William 
Greenleaf Eliot, Jr., was ordained as an Evan- 
gelist, at the Federal Street Church, Dr. Chan- 
ning's, in Boston, on August 17, 1834, twelve 
days after his twenty-third birthday. On this 
occasion. Rev. James Freeman Clarke, then of 
Louisville, preached from the text John x. 14. 
The Ordaining Prayer was delivered by Rev. 
Henry Ware, Jr., the Charge by Rev. W. H. 
Furness of Philadelphia, the Right Hand of 
Fellowship by Rev. Cazneau Palfrey, of Wash- 
ington, D. C, and the Concluding Prayer by Rev. 
Mr. Taylor Father Taylor " ), of the Seamen's 
Church, Boston. A curious document, signed 
C. Stetson, Scribe of the Ordainmg Committee, 



18 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



certifies that Mr. William G. Eliot, late of the 
Theological Seminary in Harvard University, 
had been " ordained according to the usage of 
our churches, to the work of the Gospel Ministry 
as an Evangelist, whenever Providence may open 
to him a field of labor/' 

It was not only natural but fitting that Wil- 
liam Eliot should be ordained in Dr. Channing's 
church. At the time of the Channing Anniver- 
sary in 1879, he wrote to a friend : " Forty-five 
years ago in the Federal Street Church, with 
Dr. Channing in the pulpit, I was ordained as an 
Evangelist, and well remember his kindly words 
of parental sympathy. He was the pastor of my 
grandparents, and of my parents, and I have al- 
ways regarded him as my own. No one can sur- 
pass me in profoundness of respect for his mem- 
ory. He was great as a writer, as a preacher, 
as a thinker ; above all, he was great in the pu- 
rity and simplicity of his Christian life." 

Before his ordination, a call from St. Louis 
had already come to William G. Eliot, Jr. He 
thus narrates the circumstances : " In June, 1834, 
Mr. Christopher Rhodes went to Boston (from St. 
Louis), partially for the purpose of finding some 
young man to spend the winter in St. Louis as a 
missionary preacher. Conferring with Rev. Henry 
Ware, he learned that a member of the class just 
graduated at Cambridge Divinity School had 
formed the idea of going to St. Louis on just 



EARLY LIFE 



19 



such an errand. This was a son of William G. 
Eliot, Esq., of Washington. . . . Mr. Eliot had 
already written to Mr. Rhodes, whose name was 
known to him through correspondence with his 
intimate friend, James Freeman Clarke, . . . but 
his letter had not reached St. Louis when Mr. 
Rhodes left. An interview between him and Mr. 
Rhodes led to a winter's engagement." 

. . . "Early in October Mr. Eliot left his 
home in Washington, D. C, for the West, reach- 
ing Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, after three days 
and nights of stage travel. There he stayed a 
month, preaching four Sundays, and then took 
boat for Cincinnati, where Ephraim Peabody was 
the Unitarian minister. Thence to Louisville, 
where he remained over Sunday with Mr. Clarke ; 
and after four days waiting for a boat, the river 
being very low, he came on to St. Louis, reach- 
ing that city after fourteen days of sand-bar 
voyage." 

Whatever hesitation William Eliot felt in 
going to St. Louis as a missionary arose not so 
much from a desire that " the lines should be 
laid in pleasant places," as from a dread, natural 
to untried youth, that he was not fitted for the 
work he had undertaken. September 17, 1834, 
he wrote to Mr. Clarke from Washington : " From 
New York I hear (through Mr. Furness) that they 
think of inviting me ; probably he has no ground 
for the opinion except the casual remarks of 



20 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



individuals or the like. On the whole, it is better 
I should not be invited there. If I were, the case 
is plain that I must go, and I am not ready for 
such a place yet. Besides, it would be a scurvy 
treatment of the St. Louis people not to spend at 
least the winter with them." 

Continuing, he thus expressed his sense of the 
responsibility of the work he had undertaken : 
" I daily become more sensible of my want of 
preparedness for St. Louis duties, but do not 
despair. There are a few great ideas of which I 
have a ghmmering by which the world may be 
moved. ... I believe in the omnipotent power 
of faith, because by faith we may become one 
with God and receive from Him power to do all 
things, or rather, perhaps, partake of His omni- 
potence." 

Arrived in St. Louis, the duty of the moment 
left no time for inward misgivings. Mr. Ehot 
reached there on Friday, and as he afterwards re- 
lated, was " cordially received by Mr. Rhodes and 
Mr. James Smith, whose homes became his home 
from that day onward." No time was wasted. 
Posters were immediately issued announcing that 
on the following Sunday, in Shepherd's school- 
room, opposite the court house. Unitarian preach- 
ing would be held. 

For the first few Sundays the meetings were 
well attended. Unfortunately, however, a num- 
ber of persons who came were under the impres- 



EARLY LIFE 



21 



sion that this was an anti-Christian movementj 
or at least in special antagonism to all other 
churches. When it was discovered that although 
Rev. Mr. Eliot's doctrinal opinions differed some- 
what from those of other ministers, his faith in 
the essentials of religion was equally fervent, the 
attendance diminished, leaving a strong nucleus 
of earnest Christian believers, which was even 
then the seed of the future church. Gradually 
their number increased, and early in 1835 it was 
decided to build a house of worship. 

In Nevf England the Calvinism of the emigrant 
Puritans had been followed by a reaction in favor 
of a broader interpretation of religion. Massa- 
chusetts especially, according to John Fiske, on 
account of the ecclesiastical rigidity which lim- 
ited the right of voting to church members, bred 
a strong opposition party disposed to liberal 
views. William Channing, the apostle of Unita- 
rianism, had declared that the Scriptures must be 
interpreted in the light of reason. In New Eng- 
land his principle had been widely accepted by 
thinking people, but had yet scarcely influenced 
the more distant regions of the country. That 
Mr. Eliot encountered in St. Louis less opposi- 
tion to his religious views than he had expected, 
is evident from a letter written by him to Dr. 
James Freeman, December 30, 1834. He wrote : 
" There is far less prejudice against us than I ex- 
pected to find, or rather I should say the prejudices 



22 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



are less stubborn than tbey generally are where 
our name has only been heard as a bugbear. Very 
many of the sternest Presbyterians, and the strict- 
est Episcopalians and Methodists, have been to 
hear me, and if they are on the one hand disap- 
pointed in not finding very much to condemn, 
they are generally candid enough to acknowledge 
us to be better than they thought. This is all we 
can ask. If they will but hear before condemn- 
ing, we cannot complain if they do disagree with 
us, or preach against us. 

" The infidel party were on the eve of rejoic- 
ing at my coming here, as being a real coadjutor, 
but I am glad to say that they have already ac- 
knowledged their disappointment, and they herd 
us in the mass of those ' superstitious people,' 
the Christians. Their number is not large here, 
nor composed of respectable people, though there 
are crowds of those who keep entirely aloof from 
religion, and think that Christianity will largely 
bear examination. Of these we hope to gather 
some into our church ; some of them even now 
seem favorably disposed. 

" I have had no call from any of the clergy- 
men of the place ; . . . but on one occasion our 
Society was recognized as a Christian Society. 
. . . We shall have a church here, I am confident, 
before eighteen months have passed ; at least we 
will keep that hope before us to excite us onward." 

A month later, January 26, 1835, a society was 



EARLY LIFE 



23 



regularly organized under the name of " The 
First Congregational Society of St. Louis/' and 
a movement started to raise funds for the erection 
of a church. It was decided that Rev. Mr. Eliot 
should go East to solicit assistance from the older 
societies, since he had evidently volunteered to 
do so. A letter from Mr. Christopher Rhodes, 
on behalf of the Society, accepting the tender of 
their pastor's services, is so kindly appreciative 
that it is here inserted. It is addressed : " Rev- 
erend and Dear Sir," and continues thus : " I am 
requested by the First Congregational Society of 
St. Louis to tender to you in their behalf their 
sincere thanks for the efforts made by you to 
make known and defend the Truths of the Chris- 
tian Religion, and thereby afford the most effi- 
cient aid in establishing the doctrines which we 
hold. We are well aware of the great sacrifice 
made by you of comfort, of the society of kindred 
and friends, in thus coming to a land of strangers, 
and into a community of which you must have 
had but a very limited knowledge ; and consider 
your arrival among us as of the last importance 
to the Society and the Community. 

" Four years since, the word ' Unitarian ' was 
hardly known in this city except as a term of re- 
proach, but we now feel proud to say that the 
anticipation of the benefits resulting from your 
ministry have been more than realized. Many 
persons who previous to this event looked upon 



24 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



the Eeligion of Christ as a matter of speculation, 
with suspicion, or with indifference, have, we be- 
lieve, since been convinced that the Truths so 
ably advocated and expounded by you have come 
from the Most High, and many sincere Christians 
who conscientiously but ignorantly believed the 
advocates of Unitarian Christianity to be little 
better than infidels, and who had supposed the 
doctrines held by them to be of a dangerous and 
immoral tendency, have been convinced that, 
though differing in many respects from most of 
their Christian brethren, the important doctrines 
of Christianity as held by us have their founda- 
tion in reason and revelation. 

"With these facts before us, the Society are 
convinced that the efforts to build in this city an 
altar for the worship of the True God have not 
been without effect, and hope by zeal and perse- 
verance to cause the work so happily commenced, 
and to which you have contributed such impor- 
tant service, to progress. 

" The Society, although few in numbers, look 
forward with confident expectation to a gradual 
increase, and believe by constant and judicious 
effort to be enabled soon to have a more suitable 
place for worship. 

" You are well aware of the trouble and in- 
convenience to which the Society have been sub- 
jected by the want of a room suitable for a place 
of worship, and how much depends upon being 



EARLY LIFE 



25 



able to accommodate those who, during the 
period of your ministry, may have found it un- 
pleasant and inconvenient to attend on account of 
the unsuitable accommodation, and that that diffi.- 
culty cannot be remedied unless we are enabled to 
build for ourselves a suitable House of Worship. 

" For this very desirable and necessary object, 
the Society feel under very great obligation to 
you for the prompt and generous tender of your 
services to obtain, if possible, assistance from our 
Eastern Brethren, and have accordingly directed 
me, as President of the Society, to empower you 
in their name to present to those favorably dis- 
posed towards us our prayer for sympathy and 
assistance, to receive such pecuniary aid as they 
may be disposed to give, and to take such other 
steps for the benefit of the Society as you may 
judge expedient. 

" I am also desired by the Society to express to 
you their best wishes for a safe and pleasant 
journey, and a happy meeting with your friends, 
and that they most earnestly desire to have you 
return among us at as early a period as your 
convenience and the object of your journey will 
admit." 

In accordance with his own suggestion, and the 
wishes of the Society, Mr. Eliot visited the Eastern 
cities. An appeal was made to churches in Bos- 
ton and other New England communities, as also 
in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and 



26 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

$3200 was thus obtained. Meantime, in St. Louis 
two lots had been purchased for the new church, 
and one was eventually sold at an advance of 
$3500 on the cost, which was of great advantage 
to the Society. It is written in the church records 
that " all the operations of the Society were pecu- 
liarly blessed by Providence at this early stage 
of proceedings/' for if they " had delayed the 
purchase of the lots above named three months 
only, the purchase of either of them would have 
equaled the actual cost of both." The entire 
amount collected being deemed sufficient to jus- 
tify the erection of a " House of Worship," the 
church was completed and dedicated October 29, 
1836. 

There still remained a debt of $4000 on the 
church building, and when in 1842 the increas- 
ing size of the congregation rendered it neces- 
sary to enlarge the church by one half, the debt 
was increased, until in 1846 it had grown to 
$11,000. Ten per cent, interest on this amount 
proved a heavy annual tax, difficult to obtain. 
With his usual decision in solving a dilemma, 
Mr. Eliot drew up a subscription paper for the 
" liquidation of the church debt," and the amount 
required was quickly subscribed. 

One secret of Dr. Ehot's success in raising 
money for public objects was the confidence felt 
in his sound judgment, perfect disinterestedness, 
and wise use of means to accomplish a desired 



EARLY LIFE 



27 



end. Another was, that he always headed any 
subscription paper he presented, contributing to 
the fullest limit of his resources, although this 
often necessitated great self-denial if not priva- 
tion. And his people responded ! If he led, they 
followed, giving Hberally in proportion to their 
means. Dr. Clarke said in a memorial sermon : 
" No other church in our denomination, not even 
the wealthy societies in New York and Boston, 
gave so largely and regularly for philanthropic 
and religious objects. This St. Louis Society was 
educated to giving. William Eliot once told me, 
in answer to a question, that his church annually 
gave to such objects about $30,000. ... It had 
become a principle and a custom with them to 
have a sense of responsibility for the use of 
property, and this they had learned from the 
teaching and example of their pastor." 

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Dr. Eliot 
himself made the following statement in a ser- 
mon delivered August 18, 1861 : " During the 
last ten years, this congregation of the Church 
of the Messiah has contributed, in various works 
of benevolence and charity, not less than the sum 
of $50,000 annually." How were such results 
achieved? Dr. Eliot himself answers the ques- 
tion. He tells us that almost concurrently with 
the organization of the Unitarian Society in St. 
Louis, in the winter of 1835-36, a charitable 
organization was formed, of which every one 



28 WILLIAM GREENLEAF EL.'.OT 



became a member by the fact of becoming a 
member of the church. " Out of this combined 
membership, strengthened by the cordial and 
liberal cooperation of all members of the Society, 
large benefactions came, and a habit of liberal 
giving was formed." 

In 1840 a Ministry at Large was estabhshed, 
and Rev. Charles Dall was chosen to fulfill its 
duties. As the public schools were just strug- 
gling into existence, a free school for the chil- 
dren of the poor was carried on in the basement 
rooms of the church. It was supported entirely 
by the Unitarian Society as a city mission. A 
Ladies' Industrial Society was also put in opera- 
tion, and a small building erected next to the 
church for its use. Its principal design was to 
find employment for needlewomen and others. 
Systematic efforts were made for visiting the 
poor. 

In November, 1841, by a more formal action 
of the church members, they resolved themselves 
into a charitable association, thereby practically 
making the two associations one and the same in 
everything except financial matters. Through 
this agency the work previously inaugurated was 
sustained and the ministry at large continued. 
Eev. Mr. Dall, Rev. Carlos Ward, Rev. Mr. De 
Lange, Rev. Mr. Staples, and Rev. T. L. Eliot 
filled this office at successive periods of time. 

In 1848 Dr. EHot, in writing to Mr. Ticknor 



EAKLY LIFE 



29 



of Boston regarding the establishment of a 
healthy Unitarian Society at Galena, Illinois, 
thus rehearsed his own experience in accomplish- 
ing the same object in St. Louis : In propor- 
tion to the need is the difficulty. For the first 
few years great discouragements must be ex- 
pected. The expenses will be large, the means of 
contributors very small, and until success is quite 
certain very httle public favor will be shown to the 
enterprise. In St. Louis at the end of three years 
I could not calculate upon an audience of more 
than twenty-five or thirty in pleasant weather. 
Our utmost exertions could only raise $1000 
towards a house, and $350 for minister and 
other charges. Of course we could not have gone 
on without pecuniary aid from abroad, and I 
believe that if we had waited ten years before 
beginning our effort no better beginning could 
have been made. Two thirds of our strongest 
adherents have been made out of the founda- 
tion of the Society. We have now one of the 
most influential societies in the city, and number 
nearly two hundred communicants." 

Thus had the earnestness and zeal of a few 
persons become a strong centralizing force in the 
building up of a Society. As honest and upright 
citizens, active in doing good. Unitarians were 
trusted and respected. As a Channing Unitarian, 
no more conservative exponent of the faith could 
have been found at that time than William Eliot ; 



30 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



yet in 1843 he, who had been ordained as an 
" Evangelist/' was not inckided in a meeting of 
the "Protestant Evangelical" ministers. 

An unfinished sermon, marked " never used/' 
attests Mr. Eliot's sense of the illiberality of cer- 
tain clergymen and religious societies who had 
shown a determination not to recognize the Uni- 
tarian Church and Society as a " Christian Fra- 
ternity/' although constantly inviting them to 
unite in works of Christian benevolence, and to 
join in efforts to promote Christian truth. His 
dislike of controversy, and conviction of its use- 
lessness and harm, doubtless influenced him in 
remaining silent ; and the wisdom of such a course 
was afterwards apparent, since time brought re- 
cognition. 

In the year 1849, when one tenth of the entire 
population of St. Louis died of cholera, the Uni- 
tarian faith proved its ef&cacy and power to sus- 
tain the dying and console the living ; and no 
pastor was more untiring in his ministrations to 
the sick, more devoted and faithful throughout 
a trying ordeal, than the preacher whom some of 
his brethren had hesitated to recognize as " Evan- 
gelical," although the watchword of his life was 
allegiance to Christ. 

In the year 1854, in recognition of work ac- 
complished in the West, Harvard University con- 
ferred upon William Greenleaf Eliot the degree 
of Doctor of Divinity. 



CHAPTER II 



MINISTRY 



William Greenleaf Eliot, minister and evan- 
gelist, came to St. Louis in November, 1834. In 
November, 1859, the First Congregational Church 
celebrated its Twenty-fifth Anniversary, and spe- 
cial services were held. In the sermon delivered 
upon that occasion, of which the notes are pre- 
served, Dr. Eliot said : " Twenty-five years ago, 
after a prosperous voyage of fifteen days from 
Louisville, I landed on the river bank of St. Louis. 
It seemed a wild, unpromising adventure. Young 
and inexperienced [I came] to a city whose pecu- 
liar difficulties [I had not yet learned]. No one 
but myself had any expectations of success, al- 
though a few hoped. . . . Yet I will say this 
for myself, that I never had a doubt upon the 
subject. It never entered my head that failure 
was possible. [I was] determined to persevere 
three years, come what might, but my faith in the 
power of Christian truth was such that I felt sure 
of gaining foothold. Not exactly confidence in 
myself, but yet the conviction that persevering 
effort for Christ's sake could not be in vain. This 
confidence remains and grows strong every day." 



32 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



In this same anniversary sermon Dr. Eliot 
alluded to his ignorance, when he came to St. 
Louis, of the peculiar difficulties he might have 
to encounter there. These were principally such 
as were incidental at that time to life in a 
newly settled Western city, although every such 
place differs in some respects from all others. 
Originally settled by the French, St. Louis had 
been under the dominion of both France and 
Spain. As a part of the Louisiana Purchase, 
Missouri was transferred to France for a short 
period in 1800, and ceded to the United States in 
1803. Its population up to that time had been 
almost entirely French, with a slave contingent. 
After Missouri became American soil, emigrants, 
principally from Virginia and Kentucky, began 
moving with their slave property into the State. 

In 1834 one third of the people of St. Louis 
were the descendants of the original French set- 
tlers. They were CathoHc in religion, and among 
the most prominent people socially. Early St. 
Louis was kindly, hospitable, pleasure-loving, 
condoning customs and habits which later a 
more elevated public opinion condemned. Gam- 
bling was only too common, and drinking the 
rule. Every well-furnished sideboard, even in 
the banks, glittered with decanters and glasses. 
Dueling was not infrequent, and the code of 
honor entailed social disgrace on any gentleman 
who refused an encounter. In 1834 Mr. Eliot 



MINISTRY 



33 



wrote : " We had a duel here yesterday between 
two young fools, lawyers . . . neither hurt and 
will probably fight again. If I can do it incog. 
I mean to give them a basting in the way of the 
ridiculous." 

Outside of the churches, there was as yet, in 
1834, little organization of any kind. Every- 
thing waited the shaping hand, the informing 
spirit. Soon after Mr. Eliot reached St. Louis, 
there was established in the interest of the intel- 
lectual ne^d»'='6f*^g'e'»«ftmunity an organization 
callecL^b^^ManMn^^^^ It was a Hterary 
SOCIQ/CV, sugg^f^^ the lyai feum of the New 
Eng|and tyt^^^l Bib^Q^ning with forty members, 
it rap^dj^ increased in numlfeJfK, and was incorpo- 

rated.^^s £^7NGT0t^jLi ^^ 

During the winter season there were debates 
and lectures delivered to " respectable audi- 
ences." Mr. Eliot was naturally interested in the 
society, and lectured before them on the occa- 
sion of their first anniversary. A committee was 
appointed ^^to express the thanks of that body 
to Mr. Eliot, and request a copy of the address 
for publication." 

The subject of this discourse was in keeping 
with the object of the association, namely : 
"The obligation which rests upon the present 
generation to establish literary institutions in the 
West." Mr. Eliot's remarks on this subject are 
here quoted, as giving a faithful picture not only 



34 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



of the constitution of society in early St. Louis, 
but in other newly settled Western communities. 
They present also a forecast of Mr. Eliot's own 
future work in the needed direction indicated. 

Three classes of immigrants, he declared, had 
come to the West to live. There were first those 
who had left their old homes because they could 
not maintain a respectable standing in society 
there; they were either a dead weight or an 
active poison in the community. 

Secondly, there were those who were brought 
West by a roving disposition, and the love of ex- 
citement. They were neither positively good nor 
positively bad, and seldom became useful mem- 
bers of the community. They did not add to the 
moral strength of society. 

The third class of immigrants composed those 
who were fast becoming the major portion of the 
community, namely, the enterprising and indus- 
trious, who had came to the West to better them- 
selves. These were "the bone and sinew of the 
West, who must give to society its form and 
character ; the active men in the community, who 
must ultimately give the tone to public feeling, 
and set the standard of public morality." They 
were the substantial farmers, the successful mer- 
chants and mechanics of the city, men growing 
rich by honest and patient industry. As this 
class was daily increasing in proportion to the 
rest, some might think that society with its in- 



MINISTRY 



35 



terests could safely be left to take care of itself. 
Mr. Eliot did not believe that such was the case. 
" The motives," he said, " which chiefly actuate 
this better class of our community in locating 
themselves here, are such as to divert their minds 
from the best interests of society, namely, purity 
of public morals and feeling and the general dif- 
fusion of knowledge." 

"The first settlers of some of the Eastern 
states," he continued, " came to this country with 
the express object of intellectual and religious 
freedom, and therefore their first thought was of 
religion and education. . . . But with the West 
it is very different. The grand motive which ac- 
tuates all who come here is ... to make money. 
The motive which has brought the vast majority 
of us here is not liberty of conscience, not intel- 
lectual improvement, not the desire to do good, 
but to better our own condition, to make ourselves 
rich and influential members of society. . . . And 
in the universality of this motive ... I discern 
the greatest danger which threatens our ultimate 
prosperity, ... to which the West is peculiarly 
exposed ; that religion and learning and morality 
and education, and everything which makes a 
people truly prosperous, shall all be forgotten, 
all made to bow to one god, mammon." 

To these needs of a new community, to re- 
ligion, learning, morality, education, and phi- 
lanthropy, Mr. Eliot devoted himself during a 



36 WILLIAM GKEENLEAF ELIOT 



residence of fifty-three years in St. Louis, and 
the dominant note of the Franklin Society ad- 
dress, the subordination of the pursuit of wealth 
to higher aims, was heard in many of his later 
public utterances. 

Although William Eliot, Senior, had acqui- 
esced in his son's decision to begin his pastorate 
in the far West, he had felt many misgivings as 
to the wisdom of such a course. He reaUzed 
what would be the loneliness of his hfe in St. 
Louis for some time to come, and while declar- 
ing that in the natural course of events his son 
should marry and establish a home wherever the 
field of his labor might be, he warned him that 
he could hardly expect any lady among his old 
acquaintances at home to leave kindred and 
friends to marry him and go to St. Louis to live. 
The older man little knew what was in the mind 
of the younger, who seems to have felt slight 
concern. Doubtless his choice was abeady made, 
and, knowing well the young girl he afterwards 
married, he felt sure that with her love and 
duty would outweigh minor considerations. 

In June, 1837, William G. EHot, Jr., was 
married to Miss Abby A. Cranch, daughter of 
William Cranch, Judge of the United States 
District Court in Washington, D. C. The bride 
was but twenty years of age at the time of her 
marriage, but she felt no hesitation in accom- 
panying her husband to the far West ; and in 



MINISTKY 



37 



September Mr. and Mrs. Eliot started for St. 
Louis. As Mrs. Eliot herself declared, she was 
very inexperienced, but quite wide-awake as to 
her future home and her husband's prospects as 
a missionary. From the first she sympathized 
with his purposes, and was equally ready to sac- 
rifice her own wishes and comforts to the well- 
being of others. Without her cooperation and 
aid his pastoral work would have been less effec- 
tive, and it was due to her rigid economy and 
self-denial that he was able to contribute so con- 
stantly and so generously to public measures and 
individual needs. 

Mrs. Eliot's experience on her first journey to 
St. Louis, as afterwards related by her, is inter- 
esting as illustrating the mode of travel in those 
days. Mr. Eliot and she went from Washington 
to Philadelphia in the steam-cars, which had been 
running only a few weeks, and they were " nearly 
shaken to pieces." They sailed to New York by 
steamer, and thence by the Erie Canal to Buffalo, 
and across Lake Erie to Cleveland. They started 
from Cleveland to Columbus, Ohio, on a canal- 
boat, but a broken lock necessitated their trans- 
ference to an old broken-down stage-coach, 
driven by a colored man equally ancient and 
historic. After riding all night they reached 
Cincinnati in time for the St. Louis steamer. As 
the river was low and full of sand-bars, its usual 
condition when not inundating the country, they 



38 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

were two weeks in reaching their destination, 
and nearly ran out of provisions. Yet as Mrs. 
EHot cheerfully declared, they were young and 
strong and full of hope, and hardships were 
easily borne." And indeed, in comparison with 
such an eventful journey, how tame and mono- 
tonous seems our present comfortable and speedy 
mode of travel ! 

Arrived in St. Louis, Mrs. EHot found the 
smoke and mud even worse than she had im- 
agined. Mr. Eliot and she went to live for awhile 
with their kind friends, Mr. and Mrs. Khodes, 
at the corner of Seventh Street, beyond which, 
besides the house occupied by Mr. Lucas, there 
were none except a few farmhouses, and the 
woods were thick. On the south they could look 
over to Chouteau's Pond, then a large body of 
water extending east and west for nearly two 
miles, and dividing the city north and south. 
It was surrounded by shanties where the poor 
gathered to wash their clothes in the clear water 
in primitive style. "At that time," said Mrs. 
Eliot in narrating her experiences, "St. Louis 
was not a healthy place. There was no sewer 
system, and cellars were full of water; chills 
and fever everywhere, and scarcely a poor family 
without some one in bed. Visiting among the 
sick and poor kept us very busy, and dark streets 
and muddy ways made life pretty hard for those 
of us charitably incHned." Parenthetically she 



MINISTRY 



observes that ^Hhere were few policemen and 
very bad boys." 

" However/' Mrs. Eliot continued, " matters 
soon improved, and there was a bright side ; for 
the absence of formality among the inhabitants, 
and the kindness of neighbors in sickness or 
trouble of any kind, made us seem almost as one 
family." Then, too, there were old Washington 
friends in St. Louis, General and Mrs. Ashley, 
General Bates, Colonel and Mrs. Gantt, and the 
Benton family. 

Such was St. Louis in 1837. Life for those 
who had removed thither from older communities 
was devoid of many comforts and conveniences, 
but the people were kind, hospitable, and friendly. 

Early St. Louis was a city of splendid possi- 
bilities, yet to be developed. The young minis- 
ter led a full and busy life. Although his mar- 
riage had given him sympathetic and devoted 
companionship, he must often have longed for 
the presence of old friends, co-workers in the 
Unitarian denomination, who could appreciate 
the difficulties to be encountered, and give him 
sympathy and counsel in his labors. With al- 
most pathetic entreaty he begged his old friend, 
James Freeman Clarke, to visit him; but neither 
one of these two busy men, Mr. Clarke or Mr. 
EHot, could well obey the promptings of the 
heart, and leave his post of duty. 

In the first sermon which William Eliot 



40 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



preached after his arrival in St. Louis, he de- 
clared that the object of a church organization 
should be threefold : First, self-improvement, self- 
education in morality and religion, and the for- 
mation of Christian character ; secondly, useful- 
ness by works of kindness and benevolence, 
charity and pubhc spirit ; thirdly, the diffusion 
of Christian truth. 

These objects were ever in Dr. Eliot's mind, 
and always the formation of Christian character 
preceded everything else in importance. He 
preached to his congregation not merely as to 
an audience, a body of people, but as individual 
men and women, each with his own peculiar 
needs and temptations. After the second church 
was built he wrote in his journal : Now I shall 
have time and opportunity to look more closely 
to that which I hope I never have neglected, the 
religious interests of the Society. I must direct 
all my efforts to the accomplishment of the 
Christian character in every individual, and the 
furtherance of charitable action." 

Mr. Eliot's sermons were almost exclusively 
on ethical and religious topics. The main thing, 
he declared, was " the faithful preaching of the 
old principles and doctrines of religion, — Tem- 
perance, Justice, Love." This would act closely 
enough to the consciences of those who were 
faithful hearers. Occasionally their attention 
should be invited to the application of these 



MINISTRY 



41 



principles to the evils of the day, — Intemperance, 
Slavery, War, etc. Polemical preaching was very 
distasteful to Mr. Eliot. When on one occa- 
sion, in a public discourse, the Unitarians were 
attacked by a clergyman of narrow, sectarian 
views, and some of the members of his church 
urged him to reply, he did so, but wrote in his 
journal : " Preached sermon according to notice 
to a house crowded ; a great many could not 
get in. . . . The sermon will attract attention, 
but I am sorry that I preached it. ' Let the 
potsherds of the earth strive together.' " Dr. 
Eliot always believed, with others of his denomi- 
nation, that the greatest work of a rational faith 
lay in overlooking rather than emphasizing sec- 
tarian differences, and in liberalizing and influ- 
encing other forms of belief. He desired that 
good men of all denominations should unite in 
Christian effort, and it is worth recording that 
this same minister to whom he was called upon 
to reply at this time, later sought his assistance 
and advice in a non-sectarian movement. 

No one who attended Mr. Eliot's church was 
ever intentionally overlooked or forgotten. As 
far as possible he sought to become, and was, 
personally acquainted with every member of his 
flock. In one of his letters to Mr. Clarke he wrote 
that there was not a single worldly-minded woman 
or intemperate man among his church members. 
The latter statement he could not always repeat. 



42 WILLIAM GEEENLEAF ELIOT 



and there were occasions when, on his knees in 
his study, he prayed with those who were sorely 
tempted by the love of stimulants. 

As to the charitable work of the Unitarian 
Church, it was not entirely limited to organized 
effort. In addition to directing this, Mr. EHot 
was custodian of a " Poor Fund," to which his 
parishioners gave without solicitation, generously 
and freely, such sums as they could afford or felt 
moved to give. He himself also constantly con- 
tributed from his own means, twice adding to the 
fund by a course of lectures delivered at two dif- 
ferent periods after his return from abroad. 

Frequent and many were the calls upon his 
time, and often he expressed regret that he had 
so little opportunity for reading or writing any- 
thing of lasting value. " My time," he declared, 
" is all broken in little pieces." 

On an average he made five or six calls a day, 
and the following is a memorandum of duties 
requiring immediate attention : A mother is to 
be assisted in providing for her ten-year-old son, 
very bad for his age ; the father is to be spoken 
to about his intemperance ; a place at the county 
farm must be provided for an indigent old wo- 
man ; the people at Quincy are to be aided in the 
purchase of a church lot ; a young lady desires 
assistance in starting a school ; a young man, to 
whom Mr. Eliot loaned ten dollars two weeks 
previously, wanted more. " Etc., etc., etc.," he adds 



MINISTRY 



43 



at the close of a memorandum which will remind 
many other ministers of their own experience in 
such matters. 

The effect of overwork upon their minister 
became apparent to Mr. Eliot's parishioners, and 
in a note dated April 30, 1839, written by Way- 
man Crow, and signed by him and many others, 
Mr. Eliot was informed that the members of the 
congregation had seen with much solicitude and 
anxiety the effect upon their minister of his ear- 
nest and unremitting toil. They requested him 
in the coming summer to accompany his family 
to the East, promising that the board of trustees 
would supply the pulpit in his absence. 

Again, in a second communication dated April, 
1845, and signed by many of the same names and 
others, Mr. Eliot was urged to use timely precau- 
tion and take immediate rest, that his health and 
strength might be adequate to his future minis- 
terial labors in the church. This advice seems not 
to have been acted upon until the summer of 1846, 
when he left St. Louis, and in February, 1847, 
set sail from New York in the " good ship St. 
Nicholas," a sailing vessel. His congenial friend 
and parishioner, Mr. William Glasgow, accom- 
panied him. They made an extensive tour through 
France, Switzerland, Italy, and the British Isles. 
Mr. Eliot kept a very full diary of his experiences 
abroad, illustrated with such pictures as he was 
able to obtain. He greatly enjoyed the sea voyage 



44 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



and was apparently never weary of watching the 
changing aspects of the ocean. " 0 my God/' 
he wrote, " how wonderful are thy works, how 
beautiful the garments in which we see thee ! 
None know thee who have not seen thee here." 

Mr. Eliot returned from abroad in September 
of the same year. He spent some time in the East, 
visiting Boston and other cities. While in Boston 
he received a call to King's Chapel, one of the 
oldest Unitarian churches of that city. Only a 
strong feeling of duty, the sense of his obliga- 
tions to his parish in St. Louis, prevented his ac- 
ceptance. After he reached St. Louis he wrote : 
" The position offered to me (in Boston) is very 
honorable, and might be made very influential. 
. . . My personal friendships there are very 
warm, and, more than all, an undefined attraction 
in the air of Boston and Cambridge draws me 
very strongly ; so that duty was a deciding mo- 
tive, and, to say truth, I have felt the sacrifice 
very deeply. . . . But now that I am here, in 
this thriving city, and find how very cordially I 
am received, and see what a society I shall, by 
the blessing of Providence, be able to gather, I 
am abundantly content, and believe that both 
myself and family will be very happy here." In 
the light of subsequent events Dr. Ehot must 
have been glad that he decided as he did. He 
remained where his labors, and those of other 
devoted men, were to be greatly needed. 



MINISTRY 



45 



At that period in the older cities of the East, 
earnest men and their measures were upborne on 
the wave of sympathetic enthusiasm. In the West 
they must create the public opinion and sympathy 
which would later assist them. The difficulties 
and achievements of the lonely workers in the 
West were scarcely understood and appreciated 
in the East. After reading the life of Dr. Chan- 
ning, Mr. Eliot wrote : "1 cannot help being 
struck by the great difference between the life of 
a Boston minister and my own. There the con- 
stant help and incitement of friends and of books, 
here a lonely working. Every measure for which 
I work, I must originate. My library is almost 
nothing, and if it were more, pastoral care con- 
sumes all my time." 

It was not long before Mr. Eliot's ministration 
within and without his church was to be greatly 
needed in St. Louis. The year 1849 was the most 
disastrous in the history of St. Louis, a year of 
pestilence, fire, and flood. At the very beginning 
of the year, in January, Asiatic cholera made its 
appearance. The origin of the disease was very 
apparent, and demanded quarantine regulations, 
which were not for some time enforced. In an 
article published in one of the daily papers in 
June, appeared this statement : " It is a well- 
known fact that nearly every New Orleans boat 
that lands at our wharf brings hundreds of foreign 
emigrants taken directly from the ships at New 



46 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



Orleans, in which they have been pent up for 
weeks or months — in the same clothing, without 
the opportunity of washing or purifying their 
stores, and in this condition they are brought 
here, as much or more crowded, and as completely 
deprived of the means of cleanliness as upon the 
ship, and in this condition they are scattered 
through the city." It was suggested then that 
some method of quarantine be enforced. No 
wonder that three fourths of the mortality from 
cholera was confined to the emigrants themselves. 

Dr. Eliot's church suffered severely, yet, as he 
said, it was " regularly kept open for its usual 
religious services, and no one having either direct 
or indirect claims upon it was permitted to suf- 
fer for want of proper ministration or for decent 
burial." One of the first victims in the city, 
Haven Henderson, was a member of the church, 
and his funeral took place from therein January, 
1849. At the communion service a few months 
later, the names were read of nine church mem- 
bers who had died since the previous communion 
day. " It was a year of fearful trial," Mr. Eliot 
said at a later period, " and the value of Chris- 
tian faith, with a steadfast reliance upon God's 
providence, was fully proved." 

Slowly and surely, from the beginning of the 
epidemic, it claimed its victims in ever increasing 
numbers. Mr. Eliot wrote in April : " I keep busy, 
but do nothing with a relish — the urgency of the 



MINISTRY 



47 



moment is needed for each action." And again, 
in May, he wrote : " All plans were made and no- 
tice given that I would go to Chicago for a week 
or two's absence. But Monday the cholera was 
evidently increasing so fast that I feared to go." 
Yet he continued thus : I must present to my 
people the claims of Meadville Theological School 
with hope of raising some six or eight hundred 
dollars for them." On account of the continued 
prevalence of cholera, this appeal was not made, 
and on Tuesday, May 15, Mr. Eliot made this en- 
try in his journal : ^' Cholera increases — was busy 
from morning till night visiting the sick." 

May 17, at nine o'clock in the evening, a fire 
broke out in the steamer White Cloud moored 
at the Levee, and quickly spread to other boats, 
twenty-three of which were consumed. It extended 
up into the best business portion of the city ; fif- 
teen blocks of buildings were consumed or injured, 
and property to the value of five million dollars 
destroyed. To a city of the size of St. Louis, the 
loss seemed almost irreparable, and the presence 
of the pestilence added to the horror. Dr. Eliot 
recorded that on the night of the fire he was up all 
night getting sick people from the Monroe House 
to their own safe abode. It was a fearful fire ! 

Soon after the fire the river rose to an unpre- 
cedented height, overflowing the low lands ; and 
heavy rains fell, making some parts of the city 
almost uninhabitable. This hastened the spread 



9 



48 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

of disease. At that time there was no system of 
drainage in St. Louis. 

During the entire continuance of the epidemic 
Mr. EHot was under intense physical and nervous 
strain. He went from the bedside of the dying 
to the funeral service of the dead, with little op- 
portunity for rest. On Sunday, June 17, he wrote : 
" Things are very gloomy and becoming worse ; 
but one subject engrosses all minds. In one fam- 
ily five persons have died since Wednesday, and 
like cases I hear of daily. We keep well, with 
careful, cheerful, and prayerful hearts." On Tues- 
day he recorded for himself a comparatively quiet 
day, yet he went twice to visit Mr. C, who died at 
one o'clock. At seven in the evening he christened 
a baby whose mother had died, and at eight 
o'clock went to a school directors' meeting. At 
half past nine he received a message from Mrs. 
G., whose husband he had previously visited. 
He found her alone with Dr. G., who was not 
expected to live through the night. The neigh- 
bors were all sick, and he persuaded the tired 
wife to sleep, while he remained during the night 
with the sick man. These people lived in a small 
one-story brick house, on low ground, with a bed 
on the floor. With careful nursing Dr. G. got 
through the night very well ; and when Mr. Eliot 
left him, there was hope of his recovery. He re- 
turned to his home in the morning, and sending 
a physician to the sick man he had left, went to 



MINISTRY 



49 



bed and slept three hours, when he was summoned 
to Mrs. H, and her child, both ill. At three in 
the afternoon she sent for him a second time, 
and as soon as he saw her he " knew that she 
must die." He spent most of the afternoon with 
her, and returned in the evening. At midnight he 
was again summoned to her bedside, and remained 
until three in the morning. On coming home he 
met at his door a gentleman who told him his 
next neighbor, Mrs. C, was very ill. At half 
after seven the previous evening she had been to 
Mr. Eliot's door. He had discouraged her from 
returning to nurse a cholera patient. At nine 
o'clock she was violently ill, and at half after four 
in the morning, when he reached her bedside, she 
was in a dying condition. 

And so the record continues. Mr. Eliot's min- 
istrations were not confined to his own parish- 
ioners — he went to any one who sent for him. 
In this season of trial St. Louis had reason to be 
proud of her citizens. " Many hundreds of per- 
sons of both sexes," wrote Mr. Eliot, " devoted 
themselves to the care of the sick. There was no 
panic. Very few were left to suffer unrelieved. 
The clergy, equally Catholics and Protestants, 
kept faithfully at their posts, and the physicians 
worked night and day. The greatest mortality in 
one day was two hundred and five." 

On Sunday, July 8, Mr. Eliot preached on 
" Suffering considered as Discipline." Many 



50 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



clergymen had proclaimed that God's anger was 
in the pestilence and fire, a point of view not en- 
tirely obsolete, from which Mr. Eliot very decidedly 
dissented. 

On Sunday, the 22d of July, the number of 
deaths from cholera the previous week was two 
hundred and ninety-nine, and it was announced 
that the epidemic was abating. On that day Mr. 
Eliot wrote : " I am inexpressibly shocked to- 
day to hear of the death of Rev. Mr. Yancourt. 
Nothing has brought me so strongly to a sense 
of the danger to which I have been and am ex- 
posed, or of the mercy of God by which I have so 
far been preserved. He came to see me ten days 
since, and we talked over our several trials and 
labors. He has been very faithful as a pastor, 
and very useful. . . . Yesterday at four p. m. he 
was apparently well, and died at three this morn- 
ing. It is a further warning to me, and as far as 
duty will allow, I shall take it to myself. 

" As to the theory of contagion : I have tried 
it, I think, very thoroughly, not only in the or- 
dinary exposure of nursing and doctoring, but 
sometimes I have held the hand of the suffering, 
an hour at a time, throughout the whole sickness, 
conversing with him when so feeble that in order 
to hear the words I have had to lean over and 
breathe the same breath, even in the last hours 
of life, — and after death, m kneeling near the 
coffin, have incurred the further risk of post 



MINISTRY 



51 



mortem contagion. This over and over again, by 
night and by day, when tired and unwell myself, 
but without harm." 

Living as he did in the shadow of death day 
after day, Mr. Eliot had previously written : " If 
I am taken away, I leave my own affairs in good 
condition. My church also is in good order, and 
would prosper, I think, even without me. My 
wife and children would find friends everywhere, 
and a helper in God. Yet I pray to be spared to 
them." 

The first week in August there were only 
thirty-four deaths from cholera, yet there was 
still much sickness. Mr. Ehot wrote : " When will 
it all end ? I do now so long for freedom from 
care and anxiety that I am almost sick at heart." 
On the last day of July he had counted the chil- 
dren over whom he had some degree of super- 
vision, and there were twenty-six besides his own. 
The responsibilities thus incurred, in some cases, 
extended over a period of years. 

The second week in August there were but 
twelve deaths from cholera, and the end of the 
pestilence seemed near. Out of a population of 
about sixty thousand, nearly one tenth had suc- 
cumbed to the prevailing epidemic. Mr. Eliot 
notes that under all the accumulated trials of that 
year, the business of the city had gone quietly 
on. " The citizens had borne their own burden 
without asking aid from abroad, and declined 



52 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



what was offered. . . . The church and society 
came out of the trial as men and women always 
do come out of trials if well and bravely endured, 
stronger, more vigorous, more seK-reliant, and 
more hopeful than ever before." 

In a public address, dehvered in 1882, referring 
to the year 1849, Dr. Eliot said : " Such a period 
of trial, thank God, is never likely to return. In 
those days, by reason of undrained streets and 
stagnant pools and accumulated filth, and the use 
of well water made poisonous by the filterings of 
vaults and cellars, St. Louis was a proverb of un- 
healthiness. Taught by a hard experience, a good 
system of sewerage was established, and an abun- 
dant supply of wholesome if not clear water was 
obtained, . . . and now St. Louis stands . . . 
among the three or four healthiest cities of the 
world." 

September 4, 1849, Mr. Ehot left St. Louis on 
an " indefinite excursion." " How far I shall go is 
uncertain," he wrote. " My mind must have en- 
tire rehef from ordinary cares in preparation for 
the winter's campaign." He was then at Tremont, 
IlHnois, where he had " spent four days, preached 
five times, and on Sunday afternoon organized 
a church ; " from which it appears that although 
Mr. Eliot left home for rest, he merely varied the 
direction of his activity. 

In the first sermon he preached after arriving 
in St. Louis, Mr. Eliot asserted, as already stated. 



MINISTRY 



53 



that one of the objects of a church organization 
was the " diffusion of Christian truth." As he was 
reappointed in June, 1848, missionary of the So- 
ciety for the Propagation of the Gospel, the nat- 
ural inference is that he had previously occupied 
that position. So interested was he in the estab- 
hshment in the West of churches of a liberal faith 
that, whether officially or unofficially, he would 
in any case have been a laborer in the cause ; 
and this more in the interest of religion and mo- 
rality in general, than solely for denominational 
reasons. Dogma was then more rigid, and those 
who rejected it, without an acceptance of more 
liberal views, frequently became skeptics in reli- 
gion. In the letter to Mr. Ticknor of Boston pre- 
viously alluded to regarding the establishment of 
a Unitarian church at Galena, Illinois, Mr. Eliot 
declared that he wished there should be a liberal 
church in that town, more for the sake of the 
townspeople themselves than because he desired 
the extension of the number of Unitarian churches, 
since " bigotry on the one side, and skepticism on 
the other, abounded to an unusual degree there." 

Mr. Eliot was much interested in the success 
of the Divinity School at Meadville, Pennsylva- 
nia. He prepared the notes of a missionary ser- 
mon, whose delivery was delayed on account of 
the prevalence of cholera, as was also the raising 
of a contribution for the school from his congre- 
gation. 



54 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



On the trip above referred to, he not only spent 
four days at Tremont, but drove over to Peoria ; 
and, " finding the demand urgent, concluded to 
remain two days." While at Peoria he "made 
arrangements for purchase of lot and erection of 
chapel." Thence he went to La Salle and took 
the canal-boat for Chicago, along the old historic 
" carry " of the early explorers, now the " great 
drainage canal." In Chicago he found the church 
affairs of the " First Unitarian Church " in great 
confusion. 

Apparently the church was without debt, but 
devoid of income. He drew up a plan whereby 
an income would accrue from a higher revalua- 
tion and taxation of pews, according to their 
relative value, and submitted it to the " gentle- 
men of the Society." He wrote that the plan 
would probably be adopted. 

From Chicago he crossed Lake Michigan to 
New Buffalo, and there took the cars for Detroit. 
" The first sight of steam locomotion in two 
years was very pleasant." At Buffalo he took 
tea with Eev. Mr. Hosmer, and talked over with 
him the prospects of Chicago, Milwaukee, and 
Meadville. During most of the trip from Buffalo 
to Boston he was quite ill, but at the end of 
his entire journey he had read Lyell's " Sec- 
ond Visit to the United States," and Voltaire's 
" Charles XII. " in French. 

He visited Boston, where he preached, and 



MINISTRY 



55 



also New Bedford, New York, Philadelphia, and 
Washington, in which latter city he spent ten 
days at his father's home ; and from there he 
addressed a letter to Dr. Parkman, secretary of 
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. 
He gave an account of his labors as a missionary 
since the 1st of June, a period of three months. 
From the report it appears that in that length of 
time he had held five religious services in the 
immediate vicinity of St. Louis, and fifteen in 
other places, of which four were held in Missouri 
and eleven in Illinois. The distance traveled 
had been eight hundred miles. The subjects of 
discourse had been of " directly practical nature, 
with no further allusion to controverted doctrines 
than is unavoidable in a faithful ministration of 
the gospel." " Such subjects," he wrote, " are by 
far the most acceptable to the audiences gath- 
ered in the small towns and villages where I 
preach. There is altogether too much of what is 
called doctrinal preaching in the West, and too 
little of that which addresses itself to men simply 
as sinners, and as believers in Jesus Christ." Mr. 
Eliot had " seldom less than one hundred hear- 
ers of all sects ; " and "warm assurances were uni- 
formly given of the acceptableness of his services, 
together with invitations for their renewal." He 
had found no obstacle thrown in his way by 
sectarian zeal, but everywhere a disposition to 
receive kindly what was kindly meant. 



56 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

Dr. Eliot's friend, Dr. Heywood of Louisville, 
in a memorial sermon, delivered in 1887, re- 
ferred thus to his labors as a missionary : " To 
him, with his clear eye and large soul, the oppor- 
tunities, the spiritual needs and demands of the 
great West, could not but be ever present; nor 
was he at any time deaf to its Macedonian cry 
for moral and religious help. He had been or- 
dained, not as the minister of a single church, 
but as an evangelist, and the ordination had, as 
it proved, singular significance and fitness. He 
was what he was ordained to be, — a bearer far 
and near of good tidings, the best tidings. He 
became not formally, not professedly, but really, 
the Unitarian bishop — apostle rather — to that 
wide region. To Alton, Tremont, Peoria, Quincy, 
Shelbyville, in Illinois ; to Burlington and Daven- 
port in Iowa; to Hannibal, St. Joseph, Colum- 
bia, in Missouri ; to St. Paul, Minnesota ; to Mil- 
waukee, Wisconsin, and to many another place 
whence the call came, — he was ready to go 
whenever going was possible to him ; and wher- 
ever he went he was gratefully welcomed as 
minister, teacher, adviser, friend. Friend indeed 
he proved — not in word only and cheering pre- 
sence, but often, as in Milwaukee, in substantial 
money aid from himself and his generous parish- 
ioners." 

Of Dr. Eliot's first visit to Milwaukee, the 
daughter of one of the early members of the 



MINISTRY 



57 



Unitarian Church there thus wrote : " It was in 
the summer, June or July, of 1856. There was 
a conference in Chicago, and Mr. Abram Clarke, 
brother of Rev. James Freeman Clarke, who was 
living in Milwaukee, attended. He had formerly 
been a parishioner of Dr. Eliot in St. Louis, and 
returned to Milwaukee (with Dr. Eliot) after the 
conference, to draw together the Unitarians for 
a service on Sunday. They sent word to my 
father and mother that they were coming, and 
early on Sunday morning arrived by boat from 
Chicago. Meanwhile we had sent word to all 
the Unitarian families, and altogether about thirty 
people met in our parlor on that Sunday morn- 
ing. Dr. Eliot occupied a very beautiful carved 
chair, which has ever since been associated with 
his name in our family, and there was a simple 
service, devotional exercises, and then a short 
address. 

"Then — without any previous talk — Dr. 
Eliot asked for a sheet of paper, and wrote on 
it: ^Subscriptions towards founding a church 
in Milwaukee, to be called the Church of the 
Eedeemer," William G. Eliot — $500.' It was a 
complete surprise, and stirred the people amaz- 
ingly, — the fact that a stranger should so gen- 
erously start a subscription, — and every one re- 
sponded according to his means, as liberally as 
possible, so that when the paper had been 
around the room there was $6500 pledged. In 



58 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



the afternoon Dr. Eliot went with some of the 
gentlemen to select a site, which was purchased, 
and afterwards built upon. 

"Dr. Eliot left Milwaukee the next day. In 
later years he returned several times to preach. 
I remember his fine presence and the earnest ex- 
pression of his beautiful eyes, and his smile that 
had not only sweetness but a certain intensity 
also. I cannot describe it. ... I regarded him 
with awe and great respect, and trod gently when 
in his presence, shrinking when he spoke to 
me. ... I remember well the strong impression 
made by his personality." 

Mr. Eliot reached home November 3, 1849, 
after an absence of two months, which was 
hardly sufficient time for complete recuperation. 
However, he went bravely to work. On Thanks- 
giving Day he preached a sermon suitable to 
the occasion. " The past year," he said, " had 
been one of great affliction. Those who were 
spared had occasion for thankfulness in the pos- 
session of life and health, which gave them time 
for more complete preparation for death, and for 
the continued service of God. They should also 
be thankful that they remained for their fami- 
Hes' sake. All had reason for gratitude in the 
testimony of the dead to the sufficiency of reli- 
gion. Of their own church members who had 
died, nearly all were ready to go. Some of them 
were of their best. Their memory was peaceful 



MINISTRY 



69 



and blessed, and this was a source of great hap- 
piness. The living had been able for the most 
part to fulfill their duty to the dead. No city in 
the world would have behaved better under the 
circumstances than St. Louis." Thus, with a trib- 
ute alike to the dead and the living, Mr. Eliot 
urged continuance in well-doing. 

As early as January, 1849, Mr. Eliot had be- 
gun considering in his own mind the necessity 
for a new and more commodious house of wor- 
ship. It is recorded that at an evening meet- 
ing several hundred persons could not gain ad- 
mission. He wrote that one of his plans for 
the year was the erection of a new church ; that 
he was getting it talked about, and that it met 
with general favor. Estimates of expenses were 
made, but the outbreak of cholera, and the 
" great fire," delayed action for a year. After 
his return, Sunday, December 9, Mr. Eliot pre- 
sented the matter to his congregation in a ser- 
mon in which he advised the erection of a more 
commodious "house of worship." About one 
third of those who were properly members of 
the Society, he declared, could not obtain seats 
except by favor. For these persons, and for 
those who might become members were accom- 
modations provided for them, he urged suitable 
provision. 

Arrangements were immediately made for the 
accomplishment of this plan. " It was proposed 



60 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



and undertaken," wrote Mr. Eliot, " as a thank- 
offering to God, and also as a provision for 
future growth and usefulness. Few undertakings 
have ever been entered upon with greater dis- 
interestedness or carried through to completion 
with greater readiness, every one doing his best, 
than this building of the church of which the 
corner-stone was laid July 1, 1850, at the corner 
of Ninth and Olive streets." 

Previous to this event, under date of March 18, 
1850, in a tremulous, uncertain hand, appears 
this entry in Mr. Eliot's journal: "By some 
singular affection which is a sort of paralysis of 
the muscles of the right arm, I am losing the 
faculty of writing. It has been coming on me 
for some time, and now I cannot write my name 
without difficulty, so that I must learn to write 
with my left hand. From what it comes I can- 
not guess, unless from the exertions of mind and 
body last summer. Perhaps it is only the first 
indication that a constitution naturally feeble is 
about to give way. However it may be, it has not 
come from any imprudence of which I am aware ; 
and though it cripples me very much, I must be 
content to do the best I can. It is particularly a 
disappointment to me, as I had expected to write 
a great deal this spring and summer ; but after 
fighting hard against it for six months, I am 
obliged to see the truth. Now all I have to do is 
to use the hand that is left. So that the evil 



J 



MINISTRY 61 

stops with one arm, it will be well, but of this I 
have some fear." 

From this time, for several years, Mr. Eliot was 
obliged to employ an amanuensis to write his 
sermons, although in ordinary correspondence he 
wrote with his left hand. He required a long 
period of rest, but remained at his post until the 
close of the year 1850, when he went abroad a 
second time, leaving his family at the old Cranch 
homestead, Quincy, Massachusetts. He returned 
in October, 1851. " Only too thankful to be 
once more at home among my own people," he 
wrote. " It has been a long, long year, and is the 
last of my traveling either for pleasure or health, 
I hope." 

On the first Sunday morning after his return, 
he preached in the chapel of the new church, 
thereafter to be known as the " Church of the 
Messiah " instead of the " First Congregational 
Church." This church was formally dedicated 
December 7, 1851, although not entirely com- 
pleted until a year later. It was large and com- 
modious, as in addition to the floor space there 
were galleries extending around three sides of 
the building, giving a seating capacity for twelve 
hundred persons. On the day of dedication the 
church was filled to overflowing. 

As usual in such cases, the building erected 
far exceeded in cost the original estimates. Mr. 
Eliot himself found it necessary to complete the 



62 



WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



payment of his subscription by giving a course 
of lectures on his European travels. The lectures 
were well attended and netted over five hundred 
dollars. 

Before the completion of the building a meet- 
ing was held to consider a debt of fifty thousand 
dollars soon due. Twenty persons were present, 
and so large a part of the amount required was 
pledged by generous donors, that the entire obli- 
gation was met on the completion of the church, 
thenceforth free from debt. 

The ten years preceding the Civil War were 
the most prosperous in the history of the Church 
of the Messiah. The large edifice was almost 
invariably well filled, sometimes even to over- 
flowing, with a large, influential, and thinking 
congregation, not particularly wealthy, but con- 
spicuous for liberal giving. That the Church of 
the Messiah, like every other institution in St. 
Louis, should suffer from the general disorganiza- 
tion incident to internecine strife during the war 
period was inevitable. This will be considered 
in a succeeding chapter. 

The work of the members of the Church of the 
Messiah as a charitable organization was mean- 
time not neglected. In 1856 Mr. Eliot started a 
subscription for the purchase of a house and lot, 
to be fitted up as a temporary home for children, 
and a place for the permanent establishment of 
a ministry at large. The amount requu-ed was 



MINISTRY 



63 



quickly subscribed, and the Mission Free School 
has existed ever since, supported principally by 
the interest on an endowment fund contributed 
by church members. In the year 1902-03, two 
hundred and sixty-eight children were admitted 
as inmates, with a daily average of forty-two. 

The Mission Free School became a centre of 
organized charity and active philanthropy, and 
began to be regarded, in the absence of any pub- 
lic system of relief, almost as a public city insti- 
tution. At intervals a " Poor Fund " was raised 
in the city, and distributed by committees in the 
different wards. Mr. Carlos Ward, then minister 
at large of the Church of the Messiah, served on 
such a committee. In one of the Catholic papers 
he was accused of having discriminated against 
Catholics in the use of a " Poor Fund," to which 
persons of all denominations had contributed. In 
a published reply Dr. Eliot, after acknowledging 
that Mr. Ward was one of the distributors of the 
" Poor Fund," declared that but a small part of 
the relief he had given came from that source ; 
and that he had acted principally as the almoner 
of funds contributed for his mission work by the 
members of the Church of the Messiah, amount- 
ing in one year to four thousand dollars. As to 
discrimination, the records showed that four fifths 
of the recipients of the money had been Catholics. 

On another occasion an article appeared, in 
one of the evening papers, requesting that Mr. 



64 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



Ward favor the writer with an account of the 
proposed operation of the City Mission for the 
coming winter, as there were " vast numbers of 
the poor already crying aloud for assistance." 
Dr. Eliot replied that the Mission House of the 
Church of the Messiah was supported by the con- 
gregation of that church, and was not a city insti- 
tution. " Its special design," he asserted, " is to 
rescue children and young persons from vice and 
beggary, to educate them, and find for them per- 
manent homes. It also ogives shelter and relief to 
homeless persons so far as it can. Last night 
there were twenty-seven women and children thus 
housed and fed. There are at this time, also, a 
hundred children in the industrial school, which 
is a prominent feature of the Mission House. 
Out-of-door relief is given to a limited extent. 
. . . The monthly expenditure is now consider- 
ably over five hundred dollars, and the burden is 
already greater than can be easily borne. A large 
number of the daily appHcants (on Wednesday 
there were nearly sixty) are now sent away un- 
relieved." 

This letter was published December 9, 1859. 
The following winter, 1860-61, the St. Louis 
Provident Association was organized. Mr. James 
E. Yeatman was elected president, and the Rev. 
Carlton A. Staples, at that time minister at large 
of the Church of the Messiah, became vice-presi- 
dent. Even then the extensive district lying 



MINISTRY 



65 



between Market Street and Franklin Avenue, 
and extending as far west as Fourteenth Street, 
was left in charge of the " Boys' Industrial Home 
and Mission House/ supported by the Church of 
the Messiah, which proposed to relieve destitute 
families living within those Hmits." Truly there 
remained still a wide circle of beneficence. Of 
this work, Rev. Mr. Staples, as superintendent 
of the Mission House, remained in charge until 
soon after the outbreak of the Civil War, when 
he resigned his connection with the Church of 
the Messiah to become chaplain of a regiment. 

" The principal work and influence of the 
Church of the Messiah," wrote Dr. Eliot in a his- 
torical sketch, " would need to be sought, not in 
a denominational direction, but through its indi- 
vidual members in all its various directions of 
philanthropy, education, charity, institutions of 
reform and other enterprises for public benefit. 
Its own supporters have never felt that they were 
engaged in a mere sectarian work, and have held 
this as secondary and subordinate to the general 
good." 

1 As a feature of the charity work inaugurated in 1841, the 
Boys' Industrial School was established, and successfully main- 
tained until 1856, when it was succeeded by the Mission Free 
School, which was conducted upon a broader basis. 



I 



CHAPTER III 



EDUCATION PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



Zealous as was William Eliot in the perform- 
ance of what are usually considered the duties 
of the ministry, he gave them a wide interpreta- 
tion. His sympathies were too broad to be con- 
fined within denominational limits, his energies 
too active to be restricted entirely to pastoral 
work. He went as a pioneer to the West, with a 
desire of assisting in the foundation and estab- 
lishment of its future great institutions, religious, 
philanthropic, and educational. He recognized 
the danger to which a new community is exposed 
from the pursuit of wealth exclusive of nobler am- 
bitions, and declared that active efforts and in- 
dividual initiative were necessary factors in the 
attainment of high social ideals. In the address 
before the Franklin Society previously alluded to, 
he used, in closing, these words : " This, there- 
fore, is the point to which we have come. The 
influences that are needed to advance the true 
interests of society must be provided by the ex- 
ertion — the individual, active exertion — of such 
members of the community as are awake to the 
dangers threatened. They who value literature 



EDUCATION — PUBLIC SCHOOLS 67 



and religion^ and feel the importance of education 
and morality, must come forward and establish ' 
institutions by which public opinion may be ele- 
vated, public feeling and taste purified, and the 
community saved from forgetting that there is 
something real in the world besides money ; that 
there are intellectual pleasures which money can- 
not buy, and intellectual and moral wants that 
money cannot satisfy. 

" To this end every good institution will con- 
tribute, whether it is in the department of religion, 
of morality, of education, or of general literature." 

These words indicate the direction and scope 
of Mr. Eliot's future work, which was to include 
whatever tended to the creation and satisfaction 
of the higher wants and needs of a community. 
His interest in education was secondary only to 
his zeal in his chosen vocation of a preacher of the 
gospel. As early as 1843 he was one of four or 
five gentlemen who met together to establish the 
Academy of Science in St. Louis. He believed 
that popular education, the instruction of the 
masses, should be part of the foundation of the 
social structure upon which higher education 
might rear its loftier pinnacles. His first efforts 
were directed towards improving and strengthen- 
ing the public school system of St. Louis. The 
creation of a great university for the West later 
occupied his time and thought. Every year brings 
his ideal nearer realization. 



68 WILLIAM GKEENLEAF ELIOT 



When Mr. Eliot came to St. Louis in 1834, 
there were no public free schools in that city, 
although since 1812 there had been a public 
school fund, the existence of which had its origin 
in the old French colonial customs of the early 
settlers of St. Louis, who held certain lands in 
common, as a grant from the royal domain. This 
land was inclosed and divided into strips of equal 
width, one or more of which, according to their 
abiHty to cultivate the property, was assigned to 
each family. 

When Spain took possession of the territory 
west of the Mississippi, these grants were con- 
firmed to the settlers, and again by the United 
States, according to Act of Congress in 1812, 
when "all common field lots, inhabited, cultivated, 
or possessed prior to the twentieth day of Decem- 
ber, 1803," were guaranteed to the holders. 

Through the wisdom and public spirit of 
Thomas F. Riddick, a citizen of St. Louis, who 
knew that there were certain of these common 
field lots for which no rig^htful owner could be 
found, a clause was inserted in the Act of 1812, 
providing that such lots " not rightly owned or 
claimed by private individuals, or reserved by the 
President for military purposes," should be set 
aside for the support of schools in the old French 
villages and towns, among which was included 
St. Louis. So interested was Colonel E-iddick in 
the success of this measure, that he rode all the 



EDUCATION — PUBLIC SCHOOLS 69 



way to Washington on horseback, and succeeded 
in effecting the desired legislation. Thus was a 
perpetual school fund created. By vote of the 
citizens of St. Louis, a small additional income 
accrued to the public schools, from one tenth of 
the proceeds of the sale of the " Common," a 
tract of land originally used as a public pasture 
and wood-lot. 

The first school board was organized in 1817, 
but httle was accomplished. In 1833, under the 
new city charter, six directors were elected as a 
school board. Unfortunately, one of their first 
official acts was to lease, for a term of fifty years, 
a large portion of the lands donated by the United 
States for school purposes. With the rapid in- 
crease in the value of real estate, the rental was 
very soon inadequate in value, and insufficient 
for the desired purpose, and the people of St. 
Louis did not receive the full benefit of their 
school fund for a number of years. Besides 
which, the surveyor-general of Missouri, in 1848, 
when Mr. Eliot became a member of the school 
board, had denied the claim of the pubHc schools 
to certain common lots, and refused to set them 
aside and leave the matter of adjudication to the 
courts. 

A knowledge of these facts is necessary to an 
understanding of the work Mr. Eliot was called 
upon to perform. He began his labors as a school 
director by visiting the public schools, sometimes 



70 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



devoting the entire day to that purpose. He re- 
cords that in June, with the thermometer at 
ninety-five in the shade, he walked a mile and a 
half to the First Ward School, and visited all three 
departments, which were " in poor condition." 
The entire school system was at that time very 
unsatisfactory, and the teachers inefficient. In 
August, at his instance and direction, new teach- 
ers were " imported " from New England. The 
system of instruction was altered and improved. 

Mr. Eliot soon found his duties as a member 
of the school board quite onerous, but considered 
that he was working in a good cause. There were 
three meetings each month to be attended, and he 
was occupied with school duties one or two days 
of the week. In June he was appointed member 
of a commission to visit the county farm and city 
workhouse to ascertain their condition, and also 
to prepare a memorial to the city council and 
county court, urging the establishment of a house 
of correction. " Those who are able to work all 
the time without painful weariness," he declared, 
" do not know what luxury they enjoy." 

" Next autumn," he writes, " my plans are : 

" I. To prepare a petition and get a law passed 
by the legislature, authorizing a tax of one sixth 
of one per cent, on city property for school pur- 
poses, and then to urge it before the city council. 

" II. To get the school claims for property in 
suit, for which purpose a memorial must be sent 



EDUCATION — PUBLIC SCHOOLS 71 



to the commissioner of land in Washington, to 
require action of surveyor-general of Missouri. 

" III. Purchase of lot and erection of school- 
house in this ward. 

" The first of these is my own idea, and will 
need much attention. The second I must chiefly 
see to. The third only needs urging." 

Thus much for the schools. In addition, Mr. 
EHot proposed to preach on slavery ; to get 
some initiatory steps taken in the legislature, or 
at least some consideration among the members 
thereof, as to emancipation laws ; to preach 
strongly on trade in liquors ; to deliver four or 
five lectures on European travels, churches in 
Europe, etc., for charity fund; and to give a 
course of lectures to young men and women. 
An inclusive programme ! 

In August, 1848, Mr. Eliot proposed, and was 
appointed a committee, to draft a memorial to 
the legislature, asking for a tax in St. Louis not 
exceeding one tenth of one per cent, for the 
public schools. 

In the memorial prepared and sent to both 
houses of the Missouri General Assembly by Mr. 
Eliot, the memorialists, the board of directors 
of the St. Louis public schools, requested the 
legislature to pass a law authorizing in that city 
the imposition of a tax of one tenth of one per 
cent, on city property for school purposes, said 
measure to be submitted to a vote of the tax- 



72 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

payers at the polls. Facts were adduced showing 
the insufficiency of the income then available, 
derived from the lease of lands donated for 
school purposes by the general government in 
1848, the fifty-year leases still having thirty- 
five years to run. There were then five school- 
houses, and after the sixth was built no more 
funds for the erection of buildings would be 
available for ten years, although with over- 
crowded schoolrooms only two thousand children 
could be instructed in the public schools, leav- 
ing six thousand children with no advantages of 
education. And this in a city rapidly increasing 
in population ! 

This memorial was sent to the legislature 
December 26, 1848, and an " Act to author- 
ize the levying and collecting of a Tax in the 
city of St. Louis for the Purposes of Education " 
was passed by the General Assembly and ap- 
proved February 13. It was to be submitted to 
a vote of the tax-payers of St. Louis at the polls, 
the first Monday in June. 

Meantime Mr. Ehot was also workinof for the 
accomplishment of the other objects he had out- 
lined. Preparations were made to erect a new 
schoolhouse on Fifteenth and Pine streets, and 
it is evident that he had sent a memorial to the 
commissioner of land in Washington concern- 
ing disputed claims, since he records that no- 
tice has been received from the surveyor-general 



EDUCATION — PUBLIC SCHOOLS 73 



of Missouri that he had received orders from 
Washington to set apart all lots claimed by the 
public school directors under Act of Congress. 
" One step towards our suits/' adds Mr. EHot ; 
but such seems not to have been the case, judg- 
ing from two letters written by him a year later, 
in 1849, to Judge Butterfield, commissioner of 
the general land office at Washington. Appar- 
ently the former surveyor-general of Missouri 
had been superseded, and Mr. Eliot requested 
that his successor should reinvestigate certain 
claims upon which reports adverse to the schools 
had been made by his predecessor, who had " ex- 
ceeded the limits of his office " in reporting un- 
favorably against the claims of the public schools, 
instead of setting apart for them any lots against 
which there w^as no unquestionable claim, and 
leaving the decision in each case to the proper 
legal tribunal. 

Litigation over the title of lands claimed by 
the public schools under the grant made by Act 
of Congress in 1812 was inevitable, and ex- 
tended over a term of years. In a letter written 
to Dr. Eliot in 1861, details of such a suit are 
given by Colonel Thomas T. Gantt, who was 
counsel in a case decided in favor of the public 
schools. 

October 2, 1848, Mr. Ehot had been unani- 
mously elected president of the school board. 
" A troublesome office," he declared ; " the trea- 



74 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

sury is empty and many things in confusion, but 
a good feeling exists in the Board." To influ- 
ence popular feeHng in favor of a school tax, he 
began early to publish in the daily papers a se- 
ries of articles proving the necessity of increased 
provision for education in the public schools. 
Some one writing in the " Repubhcan " com- 
plained of the large number of bad boys in the 
city, and asked : " Where are our houses of re- 
fuge ? " Mr. Eliot in reply inquired : " Where are 
ourpubHc schools?" He declared that consider- 
ing there were then five or six thousand children 
of school age out of school, because neither school- 
houses nor teachers were provided for them, it 
was no cause of wonder that a host of idle boys 
was growing up to be a curse to the city. " We 
may much more reasonably be amazed," he 
added, " that the citizens, and especially the re- 
ligious part of them, are so inactive, so blind to 
the best interests of the community, so busy on 
the one hand with party politics, and on the 
other with party theology, that they do nothing 
when the most ought to be done." 

Notwithstanding the absorbing nature of his 
work for the pubhc schools, Mr. Eliot did not 
neglect his other interests. Immediately after the 
appearance of the article above mentioned, a se- 
ries of communications on " the difficult subject 
of slavery " was published by him under ficti- 
tious signatures. In January, 1849, he also 



EDUCATION — PUBLIC -SCHOOLS 75 



preached a sermon on slavery, and wrote to Hon. 
William Campbell, of the Missouri Legislature, 
and Hon. Thomas H. Benton, United States 
senator from Missouri, to inquire regarding the 
prospect of obtaining a law providing for grad- 
ual emancipation in Missouri. 

Although there was a steady increase of cholera 
during the spring of 1849, Mr. Eliot never once 
relaxed his efforts to obtain the passage of a law 
providing for a city tax of one tenth of one per 
cent, on city property, for the support of the 
public schools. Most of the Catholics, including 
four or five liberal-minded gentlemen on the 
school board, were in favor of such a law. A 
few, less tolerant, opposed it, unless a portion of 
the fund thus obtained could be set aside for 
CathoHc schools. To such a one, who signed 
himself "A Friend of Untrammeled Educa- 
tion," Mr. Eliot replied in two articles of some 
length. He declared that the public schools were 
and should always be absolutely non-sectarian ; 
that four or five members of the school board 
were Catholics ; that the teachers were chosen 
without any reference to their religious opinions ; 
that the same rule was observed with regard to 
pupils ; and that no teacher of religion was eli- 
gible as a teacher in the public schools. Lastly, he 
called attention to the fact that when it was pro- 
posed to use the Protestant version of the Bible 
in the public schools, and there was opposition 



76 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

on the part of Catholics, the matter was referred 
to the board of directors. They had decided 
that the schools must be absolutely non-sectarian, 
and that neither version should be introduced. 
Dr. Eliot privately records that this motion was 
offered by himself, and carried by acclamation. 

The week previous to the first Monday in June, 
when the vote on the school tax was to be taken, 
Mr. Eliot published numerous articles reiterating 
arguments in favor of the law. After the " great 
fire" Mr. Eliot had written: "I fear that all 
hope of a tax for schools is lost by this fire. But 
we shall see." On the morning of the day when 
the vote was to be taken, five short articles from 
his pen, urging tax-payers to go to the polls, 
were published in the papers. The condition of 
affairs in the city was not inspiriting. The ruins 
of the fire, which had occurred about two weeks 
previously, had not yet been removed, and cholera 
had been declared an epidemic in the city. " The 
prospect was unpromising," wrote Dr. Eliot, in 
later years, " but largely through the active dili- 
gence of the members of this (the Unitarian) 
congregation, who went from house to house to 
remind people of their duty, the vote of the tax- 
payers was two to one in favor of the school tax, 
and from that date the proper history of the St. 
Louis public schools begins." And again he 
wrote : " Although the vote was small on the 
school tax, it is satisfactory that, out of six thou- 



EDUCATION — PUBLIC SCHOOLS 77 



sand voters, only two hundred and forty-five were 
found to oppose it, at a time when the calamities 
of the city would afford a fair excuse for doing 
so. Some of the large property -holders were 
against us ; the rest, with few exceptions, were ig- 
norant foreigners." Mr. Eliot himself " spent all 
Monday forenoon electioneering for the school 
tax," and " drummed up at least fifty votes." 
At the same time he collected $150 for Elder 
Nicholson's church. Elder Nicholson was build- 
ing a small church at a town called Marseilles. 

In August Mr. Eliot had begun the movement 
in favor of the tax for schools. Everything in 
relation to it since then had been either his own 
work or at his suggestion, and now that the law 
was passed and confirmed, he felt as if this alone 
was a good and sufficient year's work. ^^It is 
enough in itself," he declared, " to make me satis- 
fied that I returned to St. Louis. It will give to 
the public schools some $30,000 per annum." 

The supreme importance which Dr. Eliot at- 
tached to the free school system is shown in his 
Phi Beta Kappa address, delivered during the 
Civil War, in which he said : " The newspaper 
correspondent may tell you that Missouri was 
saved to the Union by the taking of Camp Jack- 
son and the scattering of the disloyal legislature 
three days before an ordinance of secession would 
have been passed. But the earnest of that victory 
had been given twenty-five years before by the 



78 WILLIAM GEEENLEAF ELIOT 



establishment in St. Louis of the New England 
system of free education. On the first Monday 
of June, 1849j when fully one half of the city 
had just been destroyed by fire, the citizens deter- 
mined, by a vote two to one, to tax themselves for 
the support of public schools. On that day the 
victory was gained." 

The estabHshment of evening schools for young 
people unable to attend during the day was one 
of Mr. Eliot's favorite projects. In January, 
1850, two evening schools were opened as a part 
of the public school system. Under the printed 
notice Mr. Eliot wrote : " This I have been trying 
for these three months." 

Mr. Eliot's intimate friend. Rev. John H. Hey- 
wood, thus wrote of his work for popular educa- 
tion in St. Louis : " To Mr. Eliot's reflective and 
prophetic mind, a wisely designed, liberally en- 
dowed, and well-ordered system of public schools 
was not only desirable, but absolutely essential. 
Such a system was essential alike to the intellec- 
tual welfare and the religious freedom of the city, 
whose growth and far-reaching influence none 
foresaw more clearly than he, as none understood 
better than he the vital importance of institutions, 
religious and educational, thoroughly charged 
with the American spirit, as the one efficient bar- 
rier against material, Philistine worldliness on 
the one side, and un-American ecclesiasticism on 
the other. Hence he threw the energies of his 



EDUCATION — PUBLIC SCHOOLS 79 



strong, concentrated nature into the cause of 
popular education^ working for it day and night, 
with unwavering devotion and unrelaxing tena- 
city, until, through the blessing of the Infinite 
Mind upon his labors and the labors of associates 
kindred in spirit, the desired system of public 
schools was established. It was a system lofty in 
ideal, comprehensive in purpose, and admirably 
organized, which, expanding from year to year, 
attained in time a commanding position." 

The income derived from the tax on city pro- 
perty in St. Louis established the pubHc school 
system on a secure financial basis. Schools mul- 
tiplied in number to meet the larger demands of 
a rapidly increasing population, and have ever 
since maintained a high standard of excellence. 



CHAPTER IV 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 

One thing was needed to develop the greatest 
possibilities of the public school system, and that 
was the establishment of a higher institution of 
learning. This want was to be suppHed sooner 
than any one had anticipated, through what some 
persons would call a happy accident, others a 
providential occurrence. The inception of the 
idea belonged to Mr. Wayman Crow, a member 
of Dr. Eliot's church, who in a large degree 
shared his plans and aspirations. The fulfillment 
was due to Dr. Eliot and to the noble men who 
aided him in this and other enterprises. 

In the winter of 1853 Mr. Crow was a member 
of the Missouri State Legislature as senator from 
St. Louis. Always interested in pubHc affairs, he 
took an active part in legislation. As president 
of the State Institute for the Blind, Mr. Eliot 
had memorialized the legislature for a grant of 
$20,000, which Mr. Crow evidently assisted him 
in procuring. He also brought to Mr. Eliot from 
Jeft'erson City a commission as curator of the 
State University at Columbia, a position which Mr. 
Eliot accepted with some hesitation on account 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 81 



of " a troublesome state of affairs resulting from 
political and religious controversies." 

On February 22 Mr. Eliot wrote : " An Eliot 
Seminary has been incorporated by the present 
legislature, but I know nothing of it." On the 
1st of March Mr. Crow came to St. Louis, bring- 
ing with him charters for trustees of the Church 
of the Messiah and for " Eliot Seminary." The 
latter charter was declared by Mr. Eliot to be 
" very hberal," and was to be " worked up in 
some way before long." 

The circumstances attending the early incor- 
poration of " Eliot Seminary " were thus after- 
wards related by Dr. Eliot : " A St. Louis mer- 
chant, being a member of the Missouri State 
Legislature, happened to see on the desk of a 
colleague an educational charter which struck 
him as particularly good. Without consultation 
with any one, he selected seventeen names of 
personal friends, adopted the charter with a few 
modifications, under the name of Eliot Seminary, 
and obtained its passage. It took us by surprise, 
and, at first thought, caused some amusement; 
for none of us had dreamed of such a thing, 
and an educational enterprise seemed quite be- 
yond our strength. But, upon examination of 
the charter, it was found to be a document of 
extraordinary merit, and capable of the grand- 
est use. Its possession constituted a divine 
call ; and, after taUdng it over for a year, we 



82 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

determined to organize under it, and go to 
work." 

" The puzzle at first was where to begin/' 
added Dr. Eliot. " The whole educational field 
was open before us, unoccupied except by the 
public schools, and a few indifferent private semi- 
naries. . . . Our charter authorized us to establish 
anything we pleased, to hold an unhmited amount 
of property free from all taxation, and direct our 
affairs according to our own judgment. We deter- 
mined not to let such privileges die for want of 
use. It looked like rashness or over-ambition, but 
has proved to be of the highest prudence." 

The directors of the prospective institution of 
learning did not meet for organization until Feb- 
ruary 22, 1854. During the year Mr. Eliot had 
been revolving in his own mind different plans 
and methods. His first request was that the 
title Eliot Seminary, being too personal and 
sectarian, should be changed, and the name 
" Washington Institute " was chosen. This was 
suggested by the accident of the charter's being 
signed on the 22d of February, and by the organ- 
ization of the Institute on the same day of the 
ensuing year. Mr. Eliot was elected president 
and Mr. Crow vice-president of the board of 
directors, which respective positions were held 
by these gentlemen during the lifetime of each. 
The seventeen charter members were Christo- 
pher Rhodes, Samuel Treat, John M. Krum, 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY . 83 

John Cavender, George Partridge, Phocion R. 
McCreery, George Pegram, N. J. Eaton, James 
Smith, Seth A. Ranlett, Mann Butler, William 
G. Eliot, Jr., John How, Hudson E. Bridge, 
William Glasgow, Jr., Samuel Russell, and Way- 
man Crow. Probably the fact that these gentle- 
men were all members of Mr. Eliot's church or 
congregation, and Mr. Eliot's own well-known 
views in the matter, influenced them when the 
constitution was framed in making emphatic de- 
claration of its non-sectarian character. Article 
Vni. provided that " No instruction, either secta- 
rian in religion, or partisan in politics, shall be 
allowed in any department of the institution, and 
no sectarian or partisan test shall be used in the 
election of professors, teachers, or other officers 
of the Institute, nor shall any such test ever be 
used in said Institute for any purpose whatso- 
ever. This article shall be understood as the fun- *' 
damental condition on which all endowments, 
of whatever kind, are received." Dr. Eliot was 
always opposed to sectarianism in education, and 
doubtless his experience in the public schools 
and the state university had confirmed him in 
this conviction. 

In the constitution it was also declared that 
the object of the Washington Institute was " to 
provide the means of a thorough and complete 
education, with particular view to practical use- 
fulness." It is evident from this clause, from the 



84 ^ WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

use of the term " Institute/' and from the tenor 
of Mr. EHot's address to the board of directors 
on this occasion, that at that time the practical 
and utilitarian idea was prominent in the minds 
of the incorporators. Mr. EHot is authority for 
the statement that it was " only after much 
doubt and deliberation, and finally by a prodi- 
gious stride, " that Eliot Seminary, by act of 
legislature in 1857, became Washington Uni- 
versity. 

In the address above referred to, Mr. Eliot did 
not attempt to minimize the sacrifice of time and 
money required for the contemplated enterprise. 
The important question, he said, was whether 
the accomplishment of the object undertaken 
would be sufficient compensation for the labor 
and cost, and what would be gained by success. 
Only t]iQ foundation of a great institution could 
be laid, and some parts of the plan matured. 
Those who came after them must finish the work. 

The impelling motives in the present under- 
taking, Mr. Eliot declared to be : Firstly, the 
education of their own children, that they need 
not be sent from home ; secondly, the extension 
of aid to the children of others, that they might 
obtain industrial training, for which purpose an 
industrial school would be established. There 
would be scholarships in that and other depart- 
ments, to assist " diligent and deserving youth." 

The strongest motive that appealed to the 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 



85 



incorporators was, Mr. Eliot said, " to found an 
institution for the public benefit." St. Louis 
would probably be one of the largest and most 
influential cities in the Western valley. It was 
therefore necessary to lay a broad and substantial 
foundation for educational, religious, and phi- 
lanthropic institutions, for upon such depended 
the intellectual, moral, and religious growth of 
society. If the new institution could be estab- 
lished according to the wishes of its founders, it 
would become one of the strongest agencies for 
good in the whole Western valley. It had a frame- 
work which admitted of indefinite expansion. 

In this address Mr. Eliot especially emphasized 
the practical character and tendencies of Wash- 
ington Institute, declaring that he hoped the 
practical and scientific department would stand 
in the foreground and give character to the rest. 
He deprecated the " absurd distinction " by which 
law, medicine, and theology were called profes- 
sions, and everything else labor or trade. He 
believed that the merchant, the farmer, the arti- 
san should be scientific men and dignify labor. 

In accordance with these views, a practical and 
industrial department, under the name of the 
O'Fallon Polytechnic Institute, was organized. 
It was named for Colonel John O'Fallon, a liberal 
benefactor to this and other university work. The 
following year it was placed under the distinct 
management and control of a separate board of 



86 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

directors. It comprised evening schools for the 
education of artisans occupied during the day- 
time; and for their use a Hbrary and reading- 
room were provided. Later, courses of lectures 
were arranged. This was in accordance with the 
institution idea, before a university had been 
decided upon. 

An academy for boys, now known as Smith 
Academy, was opened this same year, 1854. 
Although merely a preparatory school, it consti- 
tuted the germ of the future university. On the 
23d of April, 1857, the formal inauguration of 
Washington University took place; and on the 
evening of this day in Mercantile Library Hall 
an oration was delivered by Edward Everett. 
An advanced scientific class was then organized. 
The college proper was organized in 1858, and 
also the Mary Institute, like Smith Academy, a 
sub-department of the future university, was 
opened in 1859. In that same year, October 4, 
1859, Joseph G. Hoyt, LL. D., was inaugurated 
as Chancellor; the first college class graduating 
under him in 1862. That fall, unfortunately, he 
died. He was succeeded by William Chauvenet, 
a man of brilliant parts, eminent as a scholar and 
of especial distinction as a mathematician. 

Rapidly increasing expenses and requirements, 
with the expansion of the university idea, soon 
made apparent the necessity of some assured in- 
come from endowment. At the annual meeting 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 87 



of the board of directors, held January 26, 1860, 
Dr. Eliot presented a report in which he stated 
that the expenses of the current year proved that 
some such provision must be made, and requested 
that he, as president, be authorized to take im- 
mediate steps for the creation of a permanent 
fund of at least one hundred thousand dollars as 
a general endowment. Also, that he be further 
authorized to have necessary buildings erected, as 
soon as the requisite amount over and above the 
endowment fund could be secured. These sug- 
gestions were embodied by the members of the 
board in a resolution authorizing the subscrip- 
tion, and promising cooperation and aid. At 
a meeting held February 21, a month later. Dr. 
Eliot reported that he had found the task of rais- 
ing one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars 
more difficult than he had expected, yet it must 
be accomplished. For a long time he had con- 
tended against calling the new institution a uni- 
versity, but the work had grown on their hands. 
They abeady held a commanding place in the 
community, and had gathered together a faculty 
of which they had reason to be proud. They were 
on the point of being recognized as a university ; 
but larger demands were pressing upon them, 
and must be met. They must either stop in their 
progress, or worse than that, retrograde, and 
merge the university idea in that of a prepara- 
tory school, unless they could take a decided step 



88 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

forward, and place themselves in a position of 
permanent strength with all requisite means of 
doing their work. The times were unfavorable, 
but the only time to do a work was when the 
exigency required it to be done ; and the moral 
effect of action then would be far greater than 
at any other time. In conclusion, Dr. Eliot an- 
nounced that he had six, and probably seven, 
subscriptions of ten thousand dollars each. It is 
needless to add that, as usual in such cases, his 
own name was included among the subscribers 
for that amount. The other names appear on 
the list of directors. One modest subscription 
of one thousand dollars to the endowment fund 
was given by Dr. Eliot's mother, on condition 
that a " holiday be given to the scholars of Mary 
Institute on or near the 11th of May annually 
for a May Festival." This holiday, still observed, 
is called " Grandmother's Day." 

It was well that this endowment fund was cre- 
ated, and the college building made ready for 
occupancy, before the beginning of the Civil 
War, as this proved to be a crucial period in the 
history of the young and struggling university. 
In the year 1861 aU appointments of professors 
and instructors were made conditional on the 
" continued ability of the directors to conduct 
the institution as heretofore." There was a gen- 
eral reduction of expenses ; and, as a step in this 
direction, Dr. Eliot offered his services gratui- 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 89 



tously as professor of metaphysics. This was 
intended as a temporary arrangement, but unfor- 
tunately for his health and strength it continued 
some time, and became a laborious duty from 
which he would gladly have obtained release. 

While visiting in Boston, in 1864, Dr. Eliot 
prepared an address on "Washington Univer- 
sity," to be delivered in several of the churches 
of Boston. This was later printed for circulation, 
since he was now again endeavoring to raise an 
additional endowment of two hundred thousand 
dollars. He appealed to the churches on the 
ground that the establishment of a university 
upon the broad foundation of unsectarian Chris- 
tian principles, in a region like the valley of the 
Mississippi, might be called a Christian enter- 
prise, and its success a national benefit. Such 
an institution would be to the whole valley what 
Harvard University is to New England. When 
Dr. EHot's first church was built, Boston had con- 
tributed three thousand dollars ; and the mem- 
bers of his society had pledged themselves to 
expend annually in charity and missionary work 
the interest on that amount. This they did for 
two years, and after that expended annually for 
such purposes, not including their own support 
or educational enterprises, an average amount 
considerably larger than the original donation, 
besides founding a mission house with a partial 
endowment. 



90 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

Continuing, Dr. Eliot declared that during the 
Civil War the Western Sanitary Commission had 
received from " the generous heart of New Eng- 
land " a continued, increasing stream of bounty. 
The half miUion dollars thus sent had done an 
untold amount of good. Not a single regiment 
of all the Western States failed to know that 
New England was taking care of them as if they 
were her own. 

In describing the effects of the war upon Mis- 
souri, Dr. Eliot declared that many whole counties 
had been depopulated ; and that on some of the 
principal roads one might travel fifty miles with- 
out finding a farm with buildings or fences stand- 
ing. St. Louis merchants had lost heavily through 
their trade with the South, and for nearly three 
years business was completely prostrated. As a 
result of the abolition of slavery in Missouri, 
making a readjustment of the relations between 
employer and employed necessary, a radical social 
change must be accomplished. There must be a 
regeneration of society, new modes of life, new 
estimates of labor and the laboring classes, new 
principles of political economy, and new sources 
of prosperity ; and the agencies to direct these 
great changes were " Religion and Education." 
It was necessary. Dr. EHot believed, to have the 
best educational influences at work instantly. 
" The direct influence of the higher institutions 
of learning upon the public mind and morals," he 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 91 



declared, "cannot be overestimated. . . . Edu- 
cate the leaders of society in just principles of 
statesmanship, political economy, public and pri- 
vate morals. . . . Let the upper classes remain 
under false systems of instruction, and the mul- 
titude must suffer the consequences. . . . The 
founders of a university are a power behind 
legislation and control it. . . . It is good to 
have educated followers; we must have edu- 
cated leaders." 

In applying to the churches of Boston, Dr. 
Ehot said that of the total amount, $478,000, 
thus far contributed to Washington University, 
four fifths had come from his own congregation, 
being for several years an annual average of 
$50,000. Eleven individuals had given $300,000 
of this amount, among whom only two or three 
would be considered rich men. Several had given 
from fifteen to thirty per cent, of all they were 
worth ; and one had given sixty per cent., and 
expressed willingness to give one half the re- 
mainder. Progress had been due to the earnest 
resolution of a few men. 

The address delivered in Boston, when printed 
in pamphlet form, bore on the title-page these 
words: "A Statement relating to the Endow- 
ment of ^Washington University,' St. Louis, 
Missouri ; addressed to friends in New England, 
and especially in Boston, who have heretofore 
placed it in my power to undertake and prosecute 



92 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



works of religion, patriotism, and philanthropy 
in the West. By William G. Eliot." 

A leaflet, issued with the pamphlet, contained 
a direct appeal for assistance to "friends of 
Washington University in New England." In 
sending copies of both pubHcations to his bro- 
ther, Hon. Thomas D. Eliot, Dr. Eliot wrote on 
the leaflet : — 

Dear Brother, — You see, or will see by this docu- 
ment, that I am in for it ! Please make time to read it. 
The job is "a big one," as Mr. Lincoln says, but I mean to 
finish it because I must. I would gladly give all I am worth 
to do it up instantly, for it is now a load heavier than I can 
carry. 

Your affectionate, not ctslzj, brother, 

William. 

May 23, 1864. 

As a result of this appeal, Washington Uni- 
versity received large benefactions from two resi- 
dents of Boston, Mr. Nathaniel Thayer, and the 
heirs of Mr. Tileston's estate, through his daugh- 
ter, Mrs. Augustus Hemenway. In recognition 
there were established the " Nathaniel Thayer 
Professorship of Mathematics and AppHed Me- 
chanics" and the "Tileston Professorship of 
Political Economy." 

By a natural process of evolution and develop- 
ment, under the fostering care and self-sacrificing 
effort of its friends, the new university was becom- 
ing such in fact as well as in name. In Septem- 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 



93 



ber, 1867, a law school was organized, in which 
undertaking Mr. Henry Hitchcock, a prominent 
lawyer, and member of the university board, took 
an active part, besides serving for many years as 
provost of the law school. Without the volun- 
tary and gratuitous service of himself and his 
associates in the profession, the founding of a 
law school as a department of Washington Uni- 
versity must necessarily have been delayed. 

The O'Fallon Polytechnic Institute, established 
before the university idea had been fully accepted, 
was hardly a legitimate department of proper 
university work. It did not, like the sub-depart- 
ments of the university, represent, in a systematic 
course of instruction, a preliminary training for 
which there was otherwise no provision in the 
community ; and the cost of maintaining it was 
so great that it could only have been contin- 
ued by Washington University at the expense, 
if not sacrifice, of other essential departments. 
Therefore, in the year 1868, the O'Fallon Poly- 
technic Institute, building and contents, was con- 
veyed to the St. Louis public school board under 
certain reciprocal conditions, whereby the public 
schools undertook to carry on the work of giv- 
ing gratuitously elementary instruction in tech- 
nical science to students engaged in preparing 
themselves for industrial mechanical pursuits, and 
also to continue the library on a greatly enlarged 
scale. Thus the university was relieved of a task 



94 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



somewhat outside of its province as an institution 
of advanced learning, and confined to the more 
legitimate work of higher scientific training in 
its scientific or polytechnic department, now the 
school of engineering. 

The pubhc school library had been but a few 
years in existence, and its consolidation with the 
O'Fallon Polytechnic Library was of advantage 
to both organizations. Dr. Eliot was a member 
of the board of managers of the public school 
library from 1865 to 1869, and at the first meet- 
ing of the board, February 25, 1865, addressed 
that body, congratulating the promoters on the 
inception of an enterprise which promised such 
efficient aid to the cause of education. 

Dr. Ehot returned from abroad in the spring 
of 1870, and was immediately summoned to the 
bedside of his brother, Thomas Dawes Eliot, of 
New Bedford, Massachusetts, who died June 14. 
Dr. Eliot had evidently while away been revolv- 
ing in his mind plans for the organization of a 
scientific department in the university, for he 
sent a report, written in the sick chamber of 
his brother, to be read at the commencement 
exercises of the university in June, 1870. In 
this report he recommended the erection of a 
building for the scientific department as one of 
the essential requisites for the coming year. In 
August the plans were completed, and the build- 
ing was ready for occupancy in the fall of 1871. 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 96 



Dr. Eliot's plan for this department comprised 
four courses of scientific instruction, — chemis- 
try, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, 
and mining and metallurgy. A course of archi- 
tecture, he declared, should be added, had they 
the means. This was done in 1902, when in- 
creased income permitted larger expenditure. 

In the summer of 1870 Chancellor Chauvenet 
of Washington University was suffering from 
the illness which eventually caused his death, in 
December of that year. Added cares thus de- 
volved upon Dr. Eliot, as president of the board 
of trustees, and he realized that his strength 
was not adequate to what he considered a satis- 
factory performance of church and university 
duties. Therefore, on July 1, 1870, he sent to 
the trustees of the Church of the Messiah his 
resignation as pastor. At their request it was 
deferred for a year, that a successor might mean- 
time be found. 

His withdrawal from the ministry was to Dr. 
Eliot a cause of keen regret, and in a sermon, 
preached on the occasion of the thirty-sixth 
anniversary of the Church of the Messiah, he 
thus expressed himself in regard to a change of 
vocation, which he then hoped would be tempo- 
rary : " I need not remind you how deeply this 
cause of education has interested me since my 
first coming here until now. It has stood second 
only to the work of the Christian ministry, which 



96 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



must, with me, always stand first, and from which 
I trust never to withdraw myself. But next to it 
and in close alliance with it, as the helper and 
handmaid of religion, comes education, by the 
general diffusion of which alone can the safety 
and progress of our country be secured. Not only 
for the public schools, but for other institutions 
which are intended to reach all departments of 
learning, until they have grown into a full Amer- 
ican university, such as this great city of the 
great West should possess, has a large part of 
my time been given. 

" The impression prevails, I am aware, that I 
am soon to withdraw myself from all other pur- 
suits and devote myself hereafter exclusively to 
this university work. But it is not so. The love 
of my profession, the ministry of Jesus Christ, 
is so ingrained that no other calling has any at- 
traction for me. It has grown with my growth 
and strengthened with my strength, and becomes 
stronger as the strength fails. 

" I do desire release from the too heavy burden 
of this large church and congregation, because 
the proper performance of its reasonably required 
work is beyond my strength, and younger hands 
and a fresher mind are needed for its best in- 
terests. But there is enough other work to do, 
upon a smaller scale, both in this city and the 
vicinity, to satisfy my wishes and keep me from 
being unemployed. 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 97 

" As to educational work, I shall continue to 
do it, if God will, in the same way that I have 
always done it ; as a citizen, as a friend of edu- 
cation, and as a voluntary and unpaid task. In 
this way all that I have the ability or educational 
training to do may be done, and only so am I 
wiUing or able, as things now are, to undertake 
it." 

In September, 1870, by a resolution of the 
board of directors of Washington University, 
the president (Dr. Eliot) was constituted ex 
officio Chancellor of the university, ^' until fur- 
ther order," and immediately assumed the duties 
of the position. In December, 1870, after the 
death of Chancellor Chauvenet, Dr. Eliot, by a 
second resolution to the same effect, was con- 
tinued as Chancellor " until further notice." 



CHAPTER V 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY {contmued) 

Dr. Eliot was regularly installed Chancellor 
of Washington University in 1872. On the oc- 
casion o£ his inauguration, February 29, 1872, 
Mr. Crow, on behalf of the board of directors, 
delivered to him the charter of the university, as 
a symbol of the power conveyed to him, and in 
addressing him said in part : " More than thirty 
years ago, when St. Louis was little more than a 
frontier village, you first became intimately con- 
nected with the educational interests of this city 
as director and subsequently president of the 
public school board, and we do not forget that 
it was owing in a great part to your efforts, and 
to the earnest cooperation of those who were as- 
sociated with you in those early days, that we 
are indebted for the admirable system of common 
schools which we now possess, and for the pre- 
servation of the liberal endowment, which, in the 
space of a single lifetime, has enabled it to at- 
tain a degree of excellence and bring forth fruits 
that may safely challenge comparison. . . . From 
the moment when with fear and hope it was first 
decided to give a practical shape and form to 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 99 



the idea of this institution, down to the present 
occasion, when in the full tide of successful ex- 
periment we call you to the highest and most 
responsible of academic positions, the burthen of 
the labor has rested on your shoulders ; as presi- 
dent of the board of directors, it fell within 
your province to prepare and develop the gen- 
eral plan upon which the success of the ex- 
periment was believed to depend; to you was 
committed the duty of organizing the different 
departments of instruction as they were rendered 
necessary to accommodate the ever widening cir- 
cle of scholars ; and at the same time you have 
not only had the entire supervision of the ma- 
terial interests of the institution, but you volun- 
tarily assumed the task of placing its affairs upon 
such a basis, which I trust will soon be accom- 
plished, as to make them comparatively inde- 
pendent of financial change and vicissitude. All 
these results have been attained, and that Wash- 
ington University exists to-day, with its doors 
wide open and hundreds of scholars thronging 
its halls, is due to your energy, executive ability, 
and unselfish devotion to the sacred cause of 
education. Do not be surprised, therefore, if we 
salute you as its ' founder,' for in so doing we 
but echo the unanimous sentiments of those who 
have shared your anxieties, participated however 
humbly in your labors, and who now rejoice in 
the glorious prospect of success. This much it 



100 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

has seemed to me was due in grateful acknow- 
ledgment of past services." 

In response to Mr. Crow, Dr. Eliot in his in- 
augural address before the government and 
alumni of Washington University and many of 
his fellow-citizens declared that, holding in mem- 
ory those who had preceded him on like occa- 
sions, he had a natural feehng of unfitness in 
addressing the assembled audience. At the in- 
auguration of the university itself, there had been 
an address by Edward Everett, " the most accom- 
plished of American orators," and on subsequent 
occasions addresses by Chancellor Hoyt and Chan- 
cellor Chauvenet, both of them men whose names 
conferred distinction upon the university. It had 
been the duty of his predecessors to show the 
principles upon which sound education rests, and 
how a university should be conducted. It de- 
volved on him to show how a university should 
be built. From the first inception of the enter- 
prise the ideal of its projectors had been the per- 
manent establishment of an American university 
that would include all departments of learning, 
art, science, and aesthetic culture. Such a univer- 
sity should elevate the workman to the ranks of 
intelligent, skilled labor, and offer to all ready to 
receive them the best advantages of the highest 
education. 

While emphasizing in his address the practical 
tendency which necessity imposed upon American 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 101 



institutions of learning, Dr. Eliot declared that 
the peculiar province of every university, properly 
so termed, must be found in the highest depart- 
ment of intellectual culture. A university was 
not primarily a society for the diffusion of useful 
knowledge, nor a common school system for the 
education of the masses. Its distinctive work was 
in the higher realms of thought, there building 
upon the highest attainments of the past to reach 
upward to still higher, and thus enlarge the 
boundaries of human knowledge by discovery of 
new truths and by new applications of the old. 
Not quantity but quality of work was the ulti- 
mate test of a university's success. To educate 
one man thoroughly, to make him one of those 
that stand first, leading, not following, conferred 
more honor than to graduate a thousand upon 
the usual dead level of moderate scholarship. 
Quality included quantity. One best was more 
than many good. The man who looked a little 
further than his contemporaries discovered a new 
continent. The man who thought a little more 
profoundly invented the telegraph or revealed 
the laws of light. To train one such man adds 
more to the world's wealth than numerical figures 
can compute. 

Dr. Eliot considered that the university should 
be supplied with all needful facilities for giving 
the best education to the few, as well as a good 
education to the many. The number of those 



102 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

capable by nature of receiving the best gifts 
might be small, but the best gifts should be kept 
ready, and no one honestly seeking them should 
be turned away. 

To lay the foundations of university education 
as broad and strong as planned, to raise the su- 
perstructure of knowledge to the height desired, 
Dr. Eliot declared that large benefactions were 
required. The university had already received, 
he stated, more than three quarters of a million 
of dollars, and had become in the city and State 
an influence of moral and educational power 
which could not well be spared. Yet if this were 
all — if to hold their own were their best hope, 
to remain one of three hundred half-fledged 
colleges, whose wings refused to grow — they 
would have signally failed. " The sacrifices we 
have made," he continued, " the anxieties we have 
endured ; the prayers and longings we have 
breathed ; the day and night labor and care which 
have driven sleep from the pillow; ... we do 
not say that it wiU have been all in vain if we 
should stop here, but assuredly our aim and pur- 
pose have reached far beyond. Our assigned task 
is to make for St. Louis what Harvard College is 
to Boston, or Yale to the city of its abode. . . . 

" We would found a university so widely ac- 
knowledged in its influence that St. Louis and 
Missouri should be honored throughout the world 
by its being established here. ... As citizens 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 103 



of St. Louis we desire to make our city great and 
strong. Can that be called a great city which 
must go abroad to find the best means of educa- 
tion ? Can we attain to that first place, or hold 
it when attained, by mere force of wealth and 
muscular energy? The best things that money 
can buy are refinement and knowledge and art, 
and men of intelligence refuse to live where these 
cannot be found. . . . Tfee moral and intellec- 
tual progress must keep pace with the material, or 
our prosperity will be evanescent. . . . Nothing 
can be more sad, more pitiable, than abundance 
of wealth where poverty of mind and character 
prevails. 

" This is one of the great dangers of American 
life, especially in the luxuriantly growing West. 
Everywhere the influences of refinement and good 
taste should be cultivated. Everywhere institu- 
tions for promotion of the higher education should 
be cherished. Especially where the gifts of out- 
ward nature are so munificent, the inward life 
should be heedfully kept from the degradation of 
ignorance, from the debasing idolatry of gold." 

As to the amount of money and length of time 
required to accomplish the establishment of such 
an institution as was desired. Dr. Eliot said: 
" Give us one million of dollars, and grant us 
five years' time, and we will provide for St. Louis 
and its region all the educational advantages of 
Harvard or Yale." To some persons a million of 



104 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

dollars seems a large sum to invest in such an 
educational enterprise, but Dr. Eliot thought it 
was a sort of barbarism so to consider it. Men 
rightly said of the contemplated Merchants' Ex- 
change building, that it would be cheaply built 
if it cost a milhon and a half ; and of the grand 
viaduct over the Mississippi, that if it cost six 
millions, the only thing to be regretted was that 
it was not begun and finished ten years before. 
" But an American university," Dr. Eliot con- 
tinued, " a highway of knowledge and art, bring- 
ing here to our homes and families all the ap- 
pliances and wealth of intellectual culture from 
distant regions to make them indigenous here, is 
a greater work, and will shed its blessings upon 
all around long after the piers of that magnificent 
structure shall have crumbled away. Material 
things perish. The mind endures." 

It was an honorable ambition. Dr. Eliot 
thought, to link one's self to the beneficent in- 
stitutions of the land, so that one's name would 
be a title of nobility to children's children to 
the end of time ; yet they neither had nor would 
now appeal to such a motive nor seek to build the 
structures of usefulness upon any selfish founda- 
tion, however praiseworthy in the eyes of men. 
" In the service of God and humanity the work 
must be done, if at all ; . . . the desire to do 
good . . . must be the strong purpose by which 
every large philanthropy is sustained." 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 



105 



The most significant feature of Dr. Eliot's 
address was the statement that from the first in- 
ception of their enterprise the " aspirations and 
ideal" of the board of directors of Washington 
University had been unchanged. This ideal con- 
templated the establishment of an institution of 
advanced learning, providing not only " a good 
education for the many/' but " the best education 
for the few." 

" The best education for the few ! " It is this 
indeed which requires large means, as is proved 
by the experience of every university. Dr. Eliot 
himself wrote : " In such educational work as 
this we must often feel the absurdly great cost, 
per capita^ of what we do. But the whole cost 
should be divided, not by the few in the upper 
departments, but first, by all in all departments, 
say nine hundred, and secondly, by the next 
twenty years or onward. As in digging a well or 
bringing irrigation to a barren district, at first 
one family is supplied, a small district redeemed, 
but by and by a neighborhood, a community, a 
state." 

When at one of the early meetings of the 
board of directors of "Washington Institute," 
it was suggested that the name be changed to 
" Washington University," with an assumption 
of aU the responsibilities thereby entailed. Dr. 
Eliot, who perhaps realized more clearly than 
any other person present the magnitude of the 



106 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

undertaking, opposed the proposition, to which 
he later acceded. Then, having once given his 
assent, he laid the foundation of the new insti- 
tution with a view to its indefinite growth and 
expansion. The plans rapidly matured in his 
active and fertile brain, but for lack of funds 
progress was necessarily slow, and the natural evo- 
lution of the basic idea outstripped the means 
for its realization. Thus each year the burden 
became more heavy, as new departments were 
added. In Dr. Eliot's annual report to the 
board of directors, in January, 1873, he said 
when urging the creation of an endowment fund 
of one million of dollars : " Gentlemen, I know 
that this persistent cry for money is wearisome 
in the extreme, but how can I help it when I see 
the greatness of the opportunity, the growing 
necessity of the work to be accomplished ? 

" I doubt if there is a person in St. Louis who 
covets money or prays for it more earnestly than 
I do, and I feel an assured unreasoning convic- 
tion, ' borne in upon me,' that from some source 
or other the money will come. But I see it in 
such abundance around me, hoarded or wasted, 
that I scarcely know how patiently to wait for 
the comparatively small amount for the want of 
which our young university is compelled, like a 
child, to crawl and totter instead of vigorously 
marching on. One million of dollars, added to 
what we have, if properly invested, would secure 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 107 



to Washington University, in five years' time, 
and ever afterwards, a commanding influence 
throughout this great valley, and would go far 
toward making our city, what it cannot without 
some such agency become, the metropolis of the 
West." 

Although the board of directors of Washing- 
ton University changed somewhat from time to 
time, through the death of individual members, 
its register was always a roll of honor. In the 
absence for many years of a wide public response 
to meet the needs of the university, the directors 
repeated their gifts. "At the first meeting in 
1854," wrote Dr. Eliot, "when the first seventeen 
incorporators met together in a private parlor, 
their conjoined property would not have reached 
half a million in value. They had no definite 
plan of action, no reasonable assurance of success. 
No one outside of their own number thought they 
would succeed, and of this they themselves were 
only half convinced." 

" They went forward," continued Dr. Eliot, 
" very cautiously, and found themselves stronger 
at the end of every year than at its beginning." 
There was always an annual deficit of from two 
to ten thousand dollars. This was invariably met 
" by the persistent generosity of a few persons ; " 
and never from the first was any mechanic, or 
contractor, or teacher, or any other employed 
person obliged " to wait for payment a day after 



108 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

it was justly due." In 1878 Dr. Eliot declared 
that the university property exceeded over a 
million dollars, and that two hundred thousand 
dollars additional had been " sunk by the an- 
nual payment of deficiencies and otherwise." 
This "annual deficit/' always provided for by 
the directors, continued until quite recently. 
At times individual credit was used to cover two 
or three hundred thousand dollars. All honor 
to the men who thus made ultimate success pos- 
sible ! 

As already noted, at the first meeting of the 
incorporators of Washington University, when 
the constitution was framed, by one of its arti- 
cles the new institution was debarred from all 
sectarian or party tests or control or agency of 
any kind. Dr. Eliot always dwelt with peculiar 
satisfaction on this provision. " It is the right 
basis for an American university," he declared, 
" if the superstructure is to be consecrated, as it 
should be, to the sovereign love of truth. That 
is the single aim of all scientific investigation, of 
all learned research, of all philosophical inquiry, 
of all ethical analysis and instruction. They who 
come nearest to truth come nearest to God, and 
whoever puts hindrance in the way . . . should 
take heed lest haply he be found to be fighting 
against Him. Let the motto of our university 
be ^ Veritas pro veritate — Truth for truth's 
sake.' " 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 



109 



Another fundamental idea, in which Dr. Eliot 
felt pride, was the high standard of scholarship 
maintained in every department of the univer- 
sity. This standard of scholarship, he declared, 
had been established by Chancellors Hoyt and 
Chauvenet, and " progressively maintained." It 
was never lowered through desire of numerical 
increase. 

"I am willing," he declared in 1878, in his 
anniversary address, " to put our graduates, 
whether of the law school or collegiate or poly- 
technic departments, with those of Harvard or 
Yale so far as the short term of our university 
existence makes possible." '^Measured by the 
standard of time," he regarded the work accom- 
plished as "a marked success. Measured by the 
scale of large and comprehensive university work," 
it was "but the lisping of infancy." 

In accordance with Dr. Eliot's desire to abolish 
arbitrary distinctions in education, not to elevate 
one course of study at the expense of another, and 
to maintain an equally high standard in all, the 
classical and scientific courses of the university 
each covered an equal period of time, while both 
were " equally severe in mental discipline and com- 
prehensiveness of knowledge." The tendency, he 
declared, was continually " to bring more of the 
college studies into the scientific curriculum, and 
more of the scientific into that of the college." 
Dr. Eliot himself thoroughly believed in the dis- 



110 WILLIAM GEEENLEAF ELIOT 

ciplinary use of classical studies, especially in 
early youth before the mind is ready to grasp 
scientific truths ; but he recognized the fact that 
" the differences of mental constitution, and the 
necessary divergences in the pursuits of hfe, 
should also be considered." He maintained that 
the enlarging range of knowledge required an 
extensive variety of elective courses, and that to 
sneer at the dead languages or to depreciate sci- 
entific knowledge was equally vain and foolish. 
The essential thing was to establish a high stan- 
dard of scholarship, whether in classical or scien- 
tific studies. By lowering its standard Washing- 
ton University might quadruple the number of 
its graduates, but slow progress was preferable. 
" Let the fountains of knowledge be kept full 
and pure," he said in one of his informal reports, 
"even if at a height inaccessible to the indolent 
and unattractive to the dull. The few who reach 
them become the teachers and guides of the rest." 

Although Dr. Eliot always believed in the su- 
perior advantages of a thorough collegiate course 
before specializing in any one direction, he recog- 
nized that this was not always practicable. To 
bring education into the handicrafts, to dignify 
and improve skilled labor, to train young men for 
the workshop and factory, the manual training 
school, as a secondary school or sub-department 
of the university, was organized in 1879. It was 
created in response to popular demand, to supply 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 111 



the need created by the passing away of the ap- 
prenticeship system, and embraced a four years' 
course of study and training whereby skilled in- 
dustry might be placed nearer the level of the 
professional pursuits. Since the inception of this 
system within the last few years, manual training 
is being extensively adopted in the pubhc schools, 
and this may eventually relieve the university of 
the charge of this sub-department. 

In this same year, 1879, in which the man- 
ual training school was organized, the board of 
directors of Washington University took what 
Dr. EHot termed " another departure from tra- 
ditional usage, ... by the establishment of a 
school of art and design. ... as a department 
of the university." Art instruction had then been 
embodied in the course of study, from the " remote 
period of academic existence," and the St. Louis 
School of Fine Arts had grown from this humble 
beginning. " The certain effect of the manual 
school and the department of art," declared Dr. 
Eliot in a report, " will be to elevate the taste of 
the whole community, and to introduce into our 
workshops and manufactories a higher standard 
of skill both in the design and finish of manufac- 
tured articles of whatever sort." 

Soon after the creation of this new department 
of art, Mr. Wayman Crow crowned his numerous 
benefactions to the university by the erection of 
a museum of fine arts, as a memorial to his only 



112 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

son, Wayman Crow, Jr. It involved an expendi- 
ture of $120,000, besides $25,000 additional as 
the beginning of an endowment fund. 

May, 1875, in response to an appeal from Dr. 
Eliot, an endowment fund of $25,500, for gen- 
eral lectures, was received from Mr. William H. 
Smith. " The educational uses of such lectures, 
given by competent men, in a large city like ours," 
said Dr. Eliot, " are too obvious to need being 
insisted upon. . . . The university is thus brought 
into close and living relation to the whole com- 
munity." 

There was also received from Mrs. Mary Hem- 
enway of Boston, who through her efforts to pre- 
serve from destruction the Old South Church in 
that city had become much interested in the pro- 
motion of the study of American history in schools 
and colleges throughout the United States, the 
sum of $15,000, which, although intrusted to Dr. 
Eliot without condition, for university purposes, 
he believed would be most appropriately used as 
the beginning of a fund in the creation of a de- 
partment of American history. He therefore re- 
commended that this be established with a view 
to promoting the careful study of American his- 
tory, not only among the students of the univer- 
sity itself, but in the community at large. It was 
his opinion that Americans grew up "without 
an opportunity of studying and comprehending 
the principles on which their political and social 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 113 



freedom and national independence rest," and that 
if " the history of our growth and the elements of 
our general and special prosperities as States in 
the Union were better understood, the possibility 
of separateness or conflict would not so much as 
be thought of, and there would be no North, no 
South, no East, and no West, but the United States 
of America, the great Republic of the world." 

In the department of American history thus 
estabhshed. Professor John Fiske, eminent as 
scholar, philosopher, and historian, lectured for a 
number of years as non-resident professor, until 
his untimely death in 1901. Dr. EHot hoped to 
see the work of this department enlarged, and 
expressed it as his opinion that if the fund could 
be increased to yield $5000 annually, " the uni- 
versity might well do good service for the whole 
country in the advancement of American patriot- 
ism and statesmanship, . . . helping to create what 
at present scarcely existed at all, — a true Ameri- 
can nationality of sentiment and character." 

October 16, 1877, occurred the death of Mr. 
James Smith, one of the early members of the 
Unitarian Church in St. Louis. With Mr. Rhodes 
he met Dr. Eliot on his arrival in the city, and 
from that time, as Dr. Eliot expressed it, they 
" lived on terms of close and brotherly friend- 
ship." " As one of the most active founders of 
Washington University," said Dr. Eliot, " his 
name appears in all its early records, and at every 



1X4 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



step of its progress. Even when it was an ex- 
periment, the success of which was extremely 
doubtful, his contributions were large, and always 
the largest when discouragements were great- 
est." In addition to his gifts while living, he 
bequeathed by will to Dr. Eliot nearly one half 
of his entire estate in the following terms : " All 
the remainder of the estate I may have at the 
time of my death, real, personal, and mixed, and 
wherever situated, I do give, devise, and bequeath 
to my friend William G. Eliot, as a testimony of 
a long-continued friendship and regard, know- 
ing as I do that he always uses all moneys and 
property to him belonging judiciously, not only 
for his own purposes alone, but for the good of 
others, to have and to hold, the same unto the 
said William G. Eliot, and to his heirs, execu- 
tors, administrators, and assigns forever." 

The money thus bequeathed to him without 
conditions or stipulations. Dr. Ehot regarded and 
treated as a sacred trust. In a report made to 
the board of directors in May, 1883, he declared 
that in accord with the terms of Mr. Smith's will 
he had felt justified in making the university the 
chief recipient of his bounty, especially as he had 
always been a munificent benefactor to that insti- 
tution, and Dr. Eliot's personal friend for forty 
years. 

To perpetuate Mr. Smith's name, and as a 
memorial, a new building was erected for the 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 115 



academic department of the university, and called 
" Smith Academy." A new gymnasium was 
built, and contributions varying in amount were 
made to different departments of the university, 
as most needed. In this report of May 28, 1883, 
made to the board of directors of Washington 
University, and in an article written and pub- 
Hshed on the anniversary of Mr. Smith's death, 
October 16, 1883, Dr. EKot accounted for the 
entire amount, principal and interest, of the be- 
quest thus made to him without stipulation : 
$176,737 had been devoted to university uses, 
and the remainder, $15,236, to "such religious, 
charitable, and beneficent uses as seemed judi- 
cious." For all sums expended, Mr. Smith's ex- 
ecutor, Dr. Eliot, " held vouchers." 

In the last formal report made by Dr. EKot 
to the university board of directors, January 26, 
1885, he gave a resume of the condition of the 
various departments. The secondary schools all 
had their full complement of scholars, and com- 
plete corps of teachers. The undergraduate de- 
partment, including the scientific and collegiate 
classes, had been thoroughly reorganized, with a 
wide range of elective studies, and the students 
were as well and completely instructed as in the 
best of the Eastern institutions. The beginning 
of a library had been made, and collections of 
minerals and fossils purchased and classified. 
The law school was doing excellent work, and 



116 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

Dr. Eliot was assured by those most competent to 
judge, that nowhere could a student find better 
opportunities for legal education. 

An " unpretending observatory " had been 
built and furnished with excellent instruments, 
and was doing work not only for students, but 
for the public at large. For some years the uni- 
versity electric clock had regulated not only the 
time for the city, but for several railroad sys- 
tems ; and by a method of time signals its click 
was heard simultaneously in a number of West- 
ern cities. 

The art school had advanced to a magnitude 
and a degree of excellence that placed it on a 
level with the best in the United States, having 
two hundred and forty-five students in day and 
evening classes. The art museum was becoming 
the repository of collections of antique and mod- 
ern specimens of art. From the interest of a lec- 
ture fund, class-room and popular lectures were 
supplied every year at merely nominal cost of 
admission. 

Such, Dr. Eliot reported, was a rough outline 
of progress in the last thirteen years, the period of 
his chancellorship. It had involved the expendi- 
ture of $750,000, all of which had been given 
specifically by friends of the university for the 
purposes named. For twenty-eight years Wash- 
ington University had been advancing surely and 
steadily, until it might fairly be claimed that an 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 117 



American university had been established, needing 
only time, ample endowment, and care to give it 
a commanding influence. Its charter was perfect, 
its foundations had been well laid, its standard 
of instruction was high, with just recognition of 
the demands of the age. Yet, notwithstanding its 
advantages, the university had come to a stand- 
still ; and without enlarged endowment there was 
even danger that it would not hold its own. Its 
income had decreased from shrinkage of values 
and reduced rates of interest, and most of the 
endowment had been given for special purposes. 
The advanced standard of education had involved 
larger expenditures, which must increase rather 
than diminish. For the maintenance of its pre- 
sent position, and to provide for future growth. 
Dr. Eliot declared that an added endowment of 
$500,000 was required. 

" Our annual expenses," continued Dr. Eliot, 
" are at least 1 12,000 greater than our income 
from all sources. This is an element of weak- 
ness and discouragement, increasing year by 
year," which no prudent man would willingly en- 
counter. It is not only disheartening in itself, 
but bars all possibility and even thought of ad- 
vancement or growth. The range of education 
is continually becoming wider. The necessity of 
original research in all departments of science, 
philosophy, and literature is daily more imperative. 
The wisdom of giving to every earnest student 



118 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



the education to which his mind is best adapted, 
without forcing all to go in the same channel, 
is more generally recognized. To give the best 
and highest education to the few, in whatever 
direction may be chosen, and a good practical 
common-sense training to all, is the acknowledged 
aim. 

" All of this costs money. The best educa- 
tion costs the most. A closely restricted treasury 
with an incubus of debt means sluggishness and 
decline. Men of generous ambition, of fresh, 
vigorous minds, will not stay where they cannot 
advance both in their work and in themselves. 
Good students avoid an institution that stands 
still." 

Dr. Eliot spoke with more earnestness in thus 
addressing the board of directors because he 
realized his declining strength, and foresaw the 
difficulties his successor must encounter, unless 
the university endowment was increased. He thus 
gave his reasons for accepting the office of Chan- 
cellor in 1872 : " When Mr. Hudson E. Bridge, 
with wise forethought, laid the corner-stone of 
our proper university existence, March, 1871, by 
the unexpected and unsolicited gift of $130,000, 
of which $30,000 was for the uses of the poly- 
technic school, and the remainder for a chancel- 
lorship endowment fund, he expected and desired 
that some competent educator, of mature expe- 
rience and tried character, would be placed at the 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 119 



head of the institution. It was equally and even 
more earnestly my own desire, for I had no wish 
nor willingness to leave my previous and chosen 
calling. 

" But after long and careful search we could 
find no one of already acquired reputation who 
would be a candidate for the of6.ce. For, al- 
though a competent salary was secured, the in- 
stitution itself was so infantile that to call it a 
university seemed no better than Western gran- 
diloquism. . . . 

" It became necessary therefore to put the in- 
fant at nurse, and that process has been going 
on now under my care for these thirteen years. 
Through the continued and untiring generosity 
of friends, by gifts and bequests, and still more 
by the zealous faithfulness of an admirable corps 
of professors and teachers, to whom the chief 
praise of our success fairly belongs, we have made 
satisfactory progress. For, although the office 
of Chancellor has been but nominally, and I may 
be pardoned for adding gratuitously filled, the 
several departments have taken care of them- 
selves, and are still doing so with steady im- 
provement." 

In regard to the future Dr. Eliot said : " I 
doubt if there is any position in the whole coun- 
try that at this moment offers to a man of vigor- 
ous mind and character better opportunities of 
extended influence and usefulness than the office 



120 



WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



which as Chancellor I now hold." ^^But/' he 
added, " there is still a Hon in the way. No sen- 
sible man, having an already acquired reputa- 
tion at stake, would accept the offer as things 
now are, nor can I with any degree of comfort 
or satisfaction continue to hold it." 

In again urging the necessity of raising an 
additional endowment fund, Dr. Eliot said : 
" The friends of the university can do it if they 
will, and I am convinced by their past action 
that they are willing to do it, even at great in- 
convenience, if in their mature judgment it ought 
to be done. 

" To their mature judgment, therefore, I con- 
fidently submit the whole case. Humbly but 
most earnestly I ask for their individual aid and 
cooperation. I appeal to no secondary motives, 
however honorable. Let us still work as hereto- 
fore, in the service of God and humanity. If our 
cause does not rest on that basis it ought to fail, 
and will fail. But with right aims and motives 
there is scarcely any limit to what wise and ear- 
nest men can do. . . . 

" As a first step in the movement, I have 
prepared a subscription paper, to which I have 
myself subscribed $50,000 payable July 1, 1885, 
or whenever the full amount of $500,000 is se- 
cured to be paid. I would do more if I could, 
most gladly, but this comes nearer the extreme 
limit of prudence than I would ask or wish any 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 121 



one else to go. To me, however, it would be no 
sacrifice, but rather a cheap release from the 
anxiety and care of my present official life." 

In January, 1886, a year previous to his death, 
Dr. Eliot submitted to the personal judgment of 
one or two friends on the board of directors 
the advisability of his resignation of the offices 
both of president of that board and Chancellor 
of the university. He was advised and urged to 
postpone his withdrawal until a successor could 
be found, there being none in view. He there- 
fore continued in of&ce until his death in Feb- 
ruary, 1887, struggling as long as possible to 
fulfill the duties for which physical infirmities 
incapacitated him. 

Colonel George E. Leighton, one of the old- 
est and most loyal friends of Washington Uni- 
versity, succeeded Dr. Eliot as president of the 
board of directors. The financial condition of 
the university remained for several years about 
the same, there being always an annual deficit 
to be met. The extension of the city westward, 
the noise and bustle of crowded streets, rendered 
imperative a change of location essential to the 
continued growth of the university ; and through 
the action of the president and board of direct- 
ors a large tract of land was secured in the 
suburbs on heights overlooking the city, and, in 
1894, its purchase was effected by a popular 
subscription of 1 200,000. Not long afterwards 



122 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



Colonel Leighton retired on account of ill health, 
and in 1895 Mr. Robert Brookings was elected 
president o£ the board of directors of Washing- 
ton University. Mr. Brookings brought to the 
management of university affairs not only the 
practical ability which had made him successful 
in business, but enthusiasm, generous impulses, 
and abundant means. His conditional offer of 
$100,000 secured an additional $400,000 from 
the community as an endowment fund, and the 
gift from himself and his business partner, Mr. 
Cupples, of property amounting in value to three 
millions of dollars, estabHshed the university on 
a sound financial basis. In this and other re- 
spects time is vindicating the faith and hope 
which, even in the most serious periods of finan- 
cial crisis. Dr. Eliot maintained in the success of 
an institution whose future possibilities are still 
practically unlimited. 

At a meeting of the board of directors of 
Washington University held January 26, 1887, 
they ordered to be placed on the records of the 
university a memorial tribute to the memory of 
Dr. William G. Eliot, as follows : — 

" The trustees of Washington University as- 
sembled in reverent submission to the divine 
decree which has deprived them of their hon- 
ored president, the beloved Chancellor of the 
university. Rev. William G. Eliot, D. D., place 
upon the records of the university their humble 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 123 



tribute of honor and affection for the man ; 
of reverence for his Christian zeal ; of gratitude 
for the blessing of his beneficent life ; of love for 
the devoted friend and counselor ; of regret for 
the profound loss which the institution has sus- 
tained. 

" The records of the university from the first 
day of its organization to the present time tes- 
tify^ as such a continuous record only can, to his 
unselfish, uninterrupted, and zealous identification 
with its purpose and work. Turn backward these 
pages for the record of his daily life, and look 
around you for his monument. His prayers and 
hopes, his ideals of manly and womanly duty, of 
sacred devotion to a life of usefulness to his 
fellow-men, have been inwrought into the very 
fibre of the university ; and whatever place it has 
filled in the culture and educational advancement 
of the city and of the West is due in the largest 
measure to his clear foresight, to his devoted 
and unselfish zeal, to his wise and beneficent 
administration. 

" The outward results of that administration 
command an unsolicited and universal recogni- 
tion. But only to his associates on the board has 
it been given to know, during more than thirty 
years, his sure, untiring faith in its purpose ; the 
modest, cheerful, self-consecrated, and self-sacri- 
ficing life, which could communicate some portion 
of its own faith to others, and make possible its 



124 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



development from the little seminary of 1854 to 
the university of 1887. 

" Of his special work and labors as a Christian 
pastor, of his ardent patriotism, of his devoted 
service in the Western Sanitary Commission, and 
as a constant and always courageous friend of all 
social reforms, it must be left to others to speak. 
But the same sterling qualities of Christian pur- 
pose, of broad and large-hearted philanthropy, of 
deep and ever-abiding interest in the welfare of 
this city and its people, which gave him such pre- 
eminence as a citizen of St. Louis for over fifty 
years, impressed themselves upon his administra- 
tion as Chancellor of the university. It may be 
truly said of him that he deemed no labor or sac- 
rifice too great, if the end were right and worthy, 
and that no advantage to be secured was great 
enough to tempt his assistance to any purpose 
which a rigid and conscientious conviction had 
convinced him to be unworthy his support. His 
moral course was exceptional in its strength, and 
in the presentation and advocacy of his convic- 
tions in respect of matters of public concern he 
took no note whatever of personal consequences. 

" The great and marked characteristic of the 
Chancellor was his unfaltering faith in the ulti- 
mate success of all honest endeavor in harmony 
with the divine purpose ; and whatever obstacles 
seemed to retard, or difficulties to oppose, they 
never seemed to disturb his confidence, to cloud 



WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 125 

his hopes or discourage his efforts towards a 
beneficent result. 

" In the administration of this institution, his 
ideals of intellectual culture, always high, kept 
well advanced the moral aspect of education in 
the development of character; and he deemed 
no system of education complete which did not 
look to Christian manhood and womanhood as 
the end to be attained." 



CHAPTER VI 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION 



Had the establishment of a great university 
system on permanent and progressive principles 
been Dr. Eliot's sole life-work, outside of the 
church, the story of its evolution and growth 
might close the record of his labors. Such was 
not the case. He was an enthusiast in the cause 
of education, and Washington University exists 
as the concrete and lasting embodiment of his 
ideals in that direction. His sympathies, however, 
were too broad, his interests too wide and inclu- 
sive, to be confined in their action. He possessed 
to an unusual degree the power of cherishing not 
one earnest purpose, but several, to each of which 
he gave as much fervor as though it were the one 
object of his Hfe. His efforts in the cause of 
emancipation antedated his educational work ; but 
after the actual attainment of freedom, he urged 
above all else for the former bondman an open 
pathway to learning and knowledge. Beheving 
slavery to be a great wrong, and having faith in 
its ultimate extinction as essential to the irresist- 
ible progress of civilization. Dr. Eliot labored long 
and patiently, in faith and hope, to accomplish 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION 127 



what he individually could for gradual emancipa- 
tion. An account of his aims and methods, and 
the results he accomplished in his work for the 
slave and freedman, necessitates in the narration 
a return to his early settlement in St. Louis. 

In Missouri, the most northern of the slave 
States, surrounded on three sides by free terri- 
tory, gradual emancipation might well begin. 
So thought William Eliot; and in this hope and 
to this end he worked from 1834, when he first 
became a resident of the State, until in 1865, 
by the voluntary decree of the people through 
their representatives in constitutional convention 
assembled, all persons held to service or labor 
within the borders of Missouri were declared 
free. No citizen of Missouri, either directly or 
indirectly, had worked harder for this result 
than Dr. EHot, and none received the news with 
stronger emotions of gratitude and satisfaction. 

Although Dr. Eliot could not devote himself 
to one sole object to the exclusion of all others, 
he never relinquished an earnest purpose because 
of any confusion of aims. In the cause of right- 
eousness, in the service of humanity, he responded 
to the divine call, and the issue of his efforts in 
any one direction influenced the results in others. 
As a minister of the gospel, his first duty to the 
members of his own church was to further " the 
accomplishment of the Christian character in 
every individual." Personal righteousness in his 



128 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

judgment constituted the foundation of civic vir- 
tue, upon which depended the regeneration of 
society. In the inculcation of right principles of 
conduct among those directly under his charge, 
in strengthening and extending his personal in- 
fluence, — which he regarded as a sacred trust 
for which he was responsible to God, — and in 
increasing the diffusion of education and know- 
ledge. Dr. Eliot was indirectly, but most effec- 
tively, advancing the cause of emancipation, 
since the awakened conscience, the enHghtened 
mind, are fatal to the continuance of a system of 
oppression. 

From previous residence in the District of Co- 
lumbia, Dr. Eliot was better prepared to under- 
stand conditions in another border slave State. 
Naturally dispassionate in judgment, he hesitated 
to condemn those who were the inheritors of a 
system of which they did not necessarily approve. 
In both Washington and St. Louis slavery existed 
in a mild form. Many slaves hardly knew, except 
in name, that they were so ; and the relation be- 
tween master and servant was often kindly and 
affectionate. Such was the attitude towards the 
colored servants (not slaves) in the family of 
William Eliot, Senior, who at least on one occa- 
sion, as proved by a bill of sale with record of 
manumission, purchased a slave woman in order 
to free her. 

In St. Louis most slave property had been 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION 129 



acquired through inheritance, ind three fourths 
of the entire number of sla\. -rere employed in 
domestic service. Many were allowed by indul- 
gent masters overtime in which to work for them- 
selves. Such^ however, were the inherent evils of 
the slave system, that it contained within itself 
the possibility of great abuse, which unfortunately 
too often occurred. In his " Life of Archer Alex- 
ander," Dr. Eliot says: ^^Notwithstanding the 
comparative humanity of slavery as an institution 
in Missouri, I can truthfully say that there is no- 
thing in all the scenes of ' Uncle Tom's Cabin,' 
as given by Mrs. Stowe, to which I cannot find a 
parallel in what I have myself seen and known 
in St. Louis itself, previous to the war of seces- 
sion." And again : " Often have I seen ' gangs ' 
of negroes handcuffed together, two and two, 
going through the open street like ' dumb, driven 
cattle ' on the way to the steamboat for the South. 
Large fortunes were made by the trade, and some 
of those who made them, under thin cover of 
agency, were held as fit associates for the best 
men on ' 'change '. " 

In its every aspect, better or worse, William 
Eliot unhesitatingly condemned slavery as an in- 
stitution. Most earnest was the purpose he formed 
to oppose it, a purpose as fixed, as unalterable as 
that of Garrison or Phillips, or any one of the 
more prominent abolitionists. He did not enroll 
his name among their number, because he disap- 



130 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



proved of their methods, believing the immediate 
abolition of slavery to be undesirable for both 
master and slave, involving, as it necessarily must, 
sudden social and political changes. 

Dr. Eliot was a gradual emancipationist, with 
a clear, consistent aim, rather than an abolition- 
ist. His friend. Dr. John H. Heywood, who, as 
a minister of the same denomination in a border 
slave State, understood his position on the slavery 
question better than almost any other person, 
thus wrote concerning him in an article published 
after Dr. Eliot's death: "William Eliot's tem- 
perament, judgment, and convictions prevented 
him from cooperating with ' the extreme friends 
of freedom,' as he regarded them ; but to none 
was freedom dearer. By none was the iniquitous 
Fugitive Slave Law more promptly and more 
unsparingly denounced than by him. To him 
might be applied the discriminating words of the 
latest biographer of Abraham Lincoln. There 
was in him the same hatred of slavery, the same 
consideration for the slaveholder as the victim 
of a system he had inherited, the same sense of 
divided responsibility between the South and the 
North, the same desire to effect great reforms 
with as little individual damage and injury, as 
little disturbance of social conditions as possible, 
and these views and feelings made him naturally 
look to gradual emancipation and educational 
influences as the great remedial agencies." 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION 131 



In the year 1848 Mr. Eliot thus defined his 
own position as regarded slavery : " I have been 
in St. Louis fourteen years, in which time no one 
subject has been so often in my mind as slavery. 
Upon no other have I been more anxious to do 
what is right. My detestation of the system is 
very great, my sense of the wrong to the black 
and the injury to the white very deep. I never 
pass by the slave jails on Olive Street without 
saying almost, sometimes quite, aloud : ' May the 
curse of God abide upon this vile traffic ! ' Yet 
I have spoken of it in public comparatively sel- 
dom, only once or twice each year. In conversa- 
tion I have always spoken freely. Has it been 
through want of moral courage? I think not. 
Certainly not through self-seeking. I have had 
everything to gain and nothing to lose. Ten 
years ago I had only to come out as an ^abo- 
litionist ; ' and although I would have been re- 
quired to leave my place here, I could have 
returned to friends and kindred with the honors 
of a martyr, without his losses, ' covered with 
glory,' and with the certainty of good settlement. 
But my gain would have been the only gain. 

" I have waited, ' in patience possessing my 
soul ; ' perhaps I must wait a little longer — not 
much. The influence I have now acquired is real ; 
by proper and fearless exertions it will become 
deeper and wider." 

This attitude of patience, which Dr. Eliot main- 



132 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

tained until the fitting moment for decisive action 
arrived, was often misunderstood by friends at 
a distance, who failed to appreciate the work he 
was striving to accomplish in a manner time has 
vindicated as the wisest and best. Some dramatic 
action, some violent denunciation of slavery, that 
would have destroyed in a moment much of his 
steadily increasing personal influence, might have 
won for him the applause of the moment ; but 
when the clamor had ceased, his plan of reform 
would have been thwarted. Incredible as such a 
judgment now appears, the mere fact of a min- 
ister's continued residence in a slave State was 
considered by some of the " extreme friends of 
freedom " as an unpardonable offence, implying 
approval of an obnoxious system. 

In the inflamed state of public feeling for many 
years previous to the Civil War, good and con- 
scientious people allowed themselves to be wrought 
into a condition almost of moral frenzy by the 
evils of slavery and continued aggressions of the 
South, and were led to advocate extreme measures 
of which Dr. Eliot could not approve. Among 
the members of the Western Unitarian Confer- 
ence of Unitarian churches, which he was largely 
instrumental in organizing in 1852, were some 
persons who were impatient of the attitude as- 
sumed by others more conservative than they, 
especially on the subject of slavery. In contra- 
vention of the original intention and estabhshed 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION 133 



usage of the conference, that no vote should be 
taken on any resolution concerning which there 
was a difiPerence of opinion, these more radical 
members made successive attempts to commit that 
body to authoritative declarations. Resolutions 
on the invasion of Kansas and the attack on 
Charles Sumner were introduced at the Chicago 
Conference in 1856, but withdrawn. Radical re- 
solutions on the subject of slavery were offered 
a year later at Alton, Illinois ; and although con- 
siderably modified before they were forced to a 
vote and passed, they were accompanied by a dis- 
tinct declaration of the right to offer and pass 
more radical resolutions on any subsequent occa- 
sion. "Under these circumstances," declared Dr. 
Eliot, " and in this stage of affairs, being unwill- 
ing to vote either for or against the proposed 
statement, and regarding the whole action as sub- 
versive of the original uses of the organic law of 
the conference, I respectfully withdrew my name 
from the list of delegates, thereby intending to 
dissolve my connection with the conference as an 
associate body, at least so long as the construc- 
tion of its rules, recently adopted, shall continue 
in force." 

Immediately after this event, and in conse- 
quence of his action in withdrawing his name 
from the list of delegates of the conference. Dr. 
Eliot delivered a sermon on " Social Reform," at 
the Church of the Messiah, May 24, 1857. In 



134 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



this sermon, which was published by request of 
the trustees, he expressed his views as to the du- 
ties, in matters of social reform, of a preacher, 
who should, he beheved, in common with other 
Christians, claim the right of holding his own 
opinions upon all disputed subjects, and of ex- 
pressing them frankly at the proper time and 
place in a becoming manner. In the assertion of 
these views from the pulpit, however, some dis- 
cretion should be observed, self-restraint being 
often a more difficult virtue than inconsiderate 
speech, and requiring more courage, since it 
might be attributed to cowardice or time-serving. 

Such subjects as slavery and temperance 
should, in Dr. Eliot's opinion, be treated in the 
pulpit exclusively from a moral and reHgious 
point of view, and not in their changing poKtical 
and economical aspects when public feeling ran 
high. They were not topics of profitable address 
during periods of intense excitement. 

" The peculiar characteristics of the gospel 
are," said Dr. Eliot : " I. That it deals with 
principles both of right and wrong, rather than 
with their particular manifestations. II. It deals 
with the individual rather than communities. 
. . . No social improvement is permanent except 
that which comes through individual virtue, and 
to elevate society you must regenerate the indi- 
viduals of which it is composed. Other methods 
may serve or seem to serve for a time, but the 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION 



135 



result is sure to be reaction of wrong and perma- 
nent disappointment." 

Dr. Eliot believed that it was not incumbent 
upon a church as an assembly of believers to 
attempt social reorganization. It was rather the 
duty of its members as citizens ; and the manner 
in which they performed this duty would depend 
upon the degree of their moral and rehgious 
regeneration. 

The result of Dr. Eliot's endeavors to estab- 
lish his church " in the principles of piety and 
the daily exercise of Christian benevolence and 
virtue/' became gradually manifest in matters of 
social reform. The manumission of slaves was 
more and more frequent each year in the Church 
of the Messiah ; and its pastor declared in a pub- 
lic address, delivered after the national eman- 
cipation, that for more than ten years previous 
to that event " no slave was held by any member 
of the church except under circumstances when 
age and debility would have rendered freedom a 
hardship, and its gift a violation of the golden 
rule." 

In 1853 so many members of the Church of 
the Messiah had emancipated their slaves, that it 
was reported in a current journal as the " gen- 
eral action of the church." In reply, Mr. Eliot 
published a statement in which he declared that 
many church members had freed their slaves, 
but no general action had been taken. Consider- 



136 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



ing the helplessness of many slaves, emancipa- 
tion would not always be a kindness. " I do not 
hesitate to say," Mr. EHot wrote, "although by 
saying it I forfeit the good opinion of some who 
have intended to exalt me by their praise, that 
I know of instances in my own Society in which 
I would not advise the present emancipation of 
those held in bondage. I mean that, considered 
in the Hght of Christian obligation, I would not 
advise it. The substance of my preaching upon 
this subject and upon all others is the same, ^ to 
do as we would be done by.' " 

Mr. Eliot himself some years previously had 
been severely censured for his " comphcity with 
slavery," and accused of being " a slaveholder." 
The facts were these, as related in a private 
communication to his friend, James Freeman 
Clarke. The master of a negro woman was in- 
solvent, and the woman was to be sold with the 
ordinary chances of being sent South. Mr. Ehot 
purchased her, and immediately gave her papers 
under which she could at any hour claim her 
freedom. She remained voluntarily in his family, 
working for wages, two and a half years. Then, 
as she was married, Mr. Ehot preferred to place 
her at housekeeping, canceHng the balance of 
$300 due him, and manumitting her in open 
court. At the time the letter to Mr. Clarke was 
written, " Aunt Amanda was a very respectable 
woman, at housekeeping, but unable to make 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION 



137 



the two ends meet without assistance " from Mr. 
EHot. 

On another occasion, as related in his " Life of 
Archer Alexander/' at the entreaty of the father, 
a free colored man, who had bought his own 
freedom, and had just finished paying for him- 
self. Dr. EHot purchased a young mulatto girl, 
to save her from being sold " South " away from 
her family. As the former master insisted that 
the bill of sale should be made out to Dr. Eliot, 
he was the owner of the girl for two hours, when 
she became a free woman. The father of the 
girl raised the cash payment, and met the notes 
as soon as due. Dr. Eliot's interest in the eman- 
cipation of the race included action for its in- 
dividual members, the helpless bondmen and 
bondwomen who appealed to him ; and he did not 
agree with those over-conscientious people who 
beheved it wrong to purchase and free slaves to 
save them from the worst evils of their condition. 
It was a case of rendering unto Caesar the things 
which were Caesar's. 

Dr. Eliot always declared that education had 
been an important factor in preparing the pub- 
lic mind to accept the emancipation of the slave 
as the wisest and best policy. To illustrate the 
dread inspired in the South by the progressive 
influences of education, he asserted in his Phi 
Beta Kappa address, previously referred to, that 
" at the time when the rebellion began, the plan 



138 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

had been matured for a great Southern univer- 
sity, under especial auspices of Bishop Otis and 
Bishop (afterwards Major-General) Polk, to be 
established in Tennessee, with an immense en- 
dowment, so as to make the whole South independ- 
ent of Northern institutions. No professor was 
to be employed who was not sound in Southern 
pohtics and no class-book admitted which called 
slavery in question. Thus, discouraging popular 
education, the South desired to establish colleges 
in which an aristocratic governing class might be 
trained for the support of slavery." 

As president of the public school board, as 
curator of the State University at Columbia, and 
lastly in his work of creating and shaping a great 
university system. Dr. Eliot was helping to win 
Missouri for freedom, while endeavoring to make 
St. Louis one of the great educational centres of 
the West. 

We have Dr. EHot's own testimony to the 
fact that he preached on the subject of slavery 
once or twice every year. In January, 1848, 
he delivered an address before the Colonization 
Society, wherein he declared that he had been a 
friend of the Society for fifteen years, and was 
more and more so ; that although the inade- 
quacy of the means to the end sought seemed 
discouraging, it should not be so regarded. The 
work of the Society was based on the theory of 
the gradual emancipation of the slave, and not 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION 139 



on immediate abolition, which would make it 
impossible to provide for so large a number at 
once. Now if any State passed a gradual eman- 
cipation law, the cooperation of the Colonization 
Society would be important. Soon afterwards 
Dr. Light of the Colonization Society occupied 
Dr. EHot's pulpit for his cause, and $150 was 
subscribed. 

" In 1849, when the erection of a new church 
was under discussion," wrote Dr. Eliot, " with 
a view to frankly defining his position and that 
of his church on the slavery question, the pastor 
(Dr. Eliot) gave a short series of sermons on 
' The Family Relations,' the last of which was 
that of master and servant. The slavery ques- 
tion and Fugitive Slave Law were then in the 
height of bitter controversy, and a large congre- 
gation assembled. The ground taken was that 
the spirit of Christianity was clearly opposed to 
slavery, and that no one could claim the right as 
a Christian to hold a slave, except under strict 
application of the law of doing as one would be 
done by, of which, in the complicated relations 
of society, cases might temporarily occur ; and 
that no man in a Christian republic could be 
justly required to become an agent in returning 
a fugitive slave into bondage, although he might 
by refusal become subject to the penalties of the 
law, which he must patiently endure." After 
the delivery of this sermon a few persons left 



140 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



the church, but the majority sustained the 
minister. 

As in a sermon delivered at the outset of the 
Civil War, from the text " Kender unto Caesar 
the things which are Caesar's/' Dr. Eliot strongly 
condemned disobedience of law and the Consti- 
tution, the Fugitive Slave Law seems to have 
been the only legal enactment against which his 
conscience rebelled to the point of counseling 
resistance. 

From 1847 to 1849, Mr. Eliot published in 
the daily journals a number of articles in favor 
of gradual emancipation. These were in the 
form of letters, to which was attached sometimes 
his own signature, but more frequently a nom de 
jplume. These letters were thoroughly practical 
and argumentative, replete with facts and figures, 
and urged gradual emancipation in Missouri 
purely on economic grounds. In a letter signed 
" Free Labor," Mr. Eliot asked the citizens of 
Missouri to dispassionately consider the ques- 
tion freely discussed in Kentucky and Virginia : 
" What do we gain by slave labor ? " If they 
would do this, he maintained, it would not be 
ten years before some law for the gradual eman- 
cipation of slaves in Missouri would be passed. 
A humane master, and most masters he beKeved 
were humane, could not make slavery profitable. 
A change must take place in the whole system 
of labor ; but time, Mr. Eliot believed, was neces- 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION 141 



sary for this, and also to prepare the slaves in 
Missouri for freedom. He had been called a 

negro lover" by a correspondent of the "Re- 
publican," whereas the only objection that could 
be urged against gradual emancipation in the 
State was that it would do the blacks more harm 
than good, inasmuch as two thirds of them would 
probably be sent to the South before the law 
could go into effect. Mr. Eliot concluded by 
saying that notwithstanding this drawback he 
advocated such a law, because he desired to see 
a fair chance given to the white man, which he 
never could have where slavery existed. 

To this letter a correspondent in the " Repub- 
lican " replied, not with argument, but invective, 
which gave Mr. Eliot an opportunity for further 
argument. " The point in discussion is," he de- 
clared, " whether some mode can be devised by 
which the evil of negro slavery can be removed 
without violating the rights of anybody." He 
suggested that this be done by Southerners them- 
selves. " Everybody admits," he continued, "that 
in a State so far north as Missouri slavery is a 
curse, and the majority would be glad of any 
lawful mode of getting rid of it." The letter 
concluded thus : " For our own part we are 
ready everywhere to avow ourselves friends of 
gradual emancipation. In this we believe we be- 
long to the school of Henry Clay, Thomas Jef- 
ferson, and George Washington, all of whom 



142 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



were advocates of the most rapid extinguishment 
of slavery consistent with law or order. . . . We 
hold ourselves ready to prove to any disinterested 
or interested person that the worst investment 
any man can make is in slaves, and that the 
more of them we have in this State the poorer 
we are." 

The promise contained in the last paragraph 
of this letter was later fulfilled in an article 
written to prove the unprofitableness of slave 
labor. In St. Louis prime house servants (male) 
could be hired out for $150 per year, women 
for $75. Servants thus hired out soon became 
discontented and worthless, and for this reason 
preference was more and more given every year 
to white servants at higher wages. In the coun- 
try slave labor appeared to be equally unprofit- 
able, $100 on an average being received by the 
owner for the hire of his best field hands. Even 
this amount was too large for the payer, since 
white labor could be obtained for $10 a month, 
without the added expense of clothing and care 
in sickness. This was the result of the large 
foreign immigration. 

Mr. Eliot then prophesied the gradual ex- 
tinguishment of slavery in Missouri from natu- 
ral causes. These were the large influx of the 
German population, amounting to nearly one 
hundred thousand persons, very few of whom 
employed slave labor; the great increase of 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION 143 



anti-slavery feeling in the free States bordering 
on Missouri, which occasioned a great number of 
slaves to run away from their owners ; lastly, the 
nature of the soil, which was not adapted to 
slave labor. To prove that these natural causes 
were working in the direction indicated, tables 
were given to show that while the proportion of 
the slave to the free population increased from 
1810 to 1830, from 1830 to 1845 it had de- 
creased from one fifth to one seventh. 

January 8, 1849, Mr. Eliot wrote to Hon. 
William Campbell of the Missouri Senate, re- 
questing information regarding the tone of feel- 
ing towards slavery in the General Assembly. 
Mr. Eliot, in this letter, gave his estimate of the 
number of slaves in Missouri as about seventy 
thousand; the number of slaveholders ten or 
twelve thousand, and the number interested in 
the continuance of the slave system not more 
than fifty or sixty thousand. He also expressed 
the opinion that the majority of the people of 
the State, if left to their own action, would be 
in favor of a moderate, judicious law of gradual 
emancipation, if the matter could be properly 
placed before them. He further suggested that 
he could easily send Mr. Campbell, as an enter- 
ing wedge, a petition, with a sufficient number of 
good signatures to insure respect. 

Also, January 13, 1849, the following letter 
was sent to Hon. Thomas H. Benton, at that 



144 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



time, and until 1850, United States Senator from 
Missouri : — 

Hon. Thomas H. Benton : 

Dear Sir, — My acquaintance with you is too slight to 
justify me in the course which I am now taking, and I must 
find my apology in the importance of my subject, and in the 
strong interest you have always felt in the prosperity of this 
State. A residence of more than fourteen years in St. Louis, 
and careful observation of the progress of society, not only 
in the city, but throughout the State, have led me to believe 
that the institution of slavery is the greatest obstacle, per- 
haps the only great obstacle, by which our moral, social, and 
general advance as a people is hindered. 

Next to the immediate duties of my profession, there- 
fore, there is no object which I have so much at heart as 
the commencement of some movement by which an emanci- 
pation law in some form or other could be secured. It is to 
learn your views upon this subject that I now write. Your 
influence in Missouri is so great, and so well established, 
that almost any measure advised by you would not only 
command favorable hearing, but would probably meet with 
general favor. Has not the time for action upon this great 
interest arrived ? Is not an opportunity offered of covering 
your name with the glory not only of the statesman, but of 
the philanthropist, by numbering this among the free States ? 
I believe that the public mind is so far prepared that if you 
were to take the lead, the majority are ready to follow. If 
you will consent to draw up a law providing for the gradual 
emancipation of our slaves, say in course of ten, twenty, or 
thirty years, upon some system which would protect the in- 
terests of all parties as far as possible, it would become the 
law of the land before three years had passed. The reac- 
tion in the public mind produced by the half efforts of the 
abolition party has now nearly or quite subsided, and the 
mass of the people are ready to consider their own interests, 
and the rights of others, dispassionately. 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION 145 



It would be impertinent for me to make further sugges- 
tions upon a subject on which you are so thoroughly in- 
formed. My own feelings are in favor of prudent, con- 
servative legislation, and I believe that all great changes in 
the social system, to be well made, must be gradual. But 
the beginning cannot be made too soon, and in this case it 
is the first step which costs. 

As a clergyman I am debarred from all action in what 
are termed politics, nor have I any desire to overstep my 
proper limits ; but I should account myself indeed happy if 
I could be in any way instrumental in unbinding the ener- 
gies of this State by giving respect to labor, which cannot be 
done while we have slavery as a system within our border. 
I hope, therefore, that you will pardon my present intrusion, 
for which I have no other motive than a desire to do good. 

If you should honor me with a reply, no public use shall 
be made of it unless by your direction. 

And I remain with great respect, 
Yours, 

W. G. Eliot. 

There is no record that any action towards 
gradual emancipation in Missouri was taken by 
either Mr. Campbell or Senator Benton, although 
Benton was opposed to slavery. He is quoted 
as saying : " The incurability of the evil is the 
greatest objection to the extension of slavery. 
If it is wrong for the legislature to inflict an 
evil which can be cured, how much more to in- 
flict one that is incurable and against the will of 
the people who are to endure it forever. I quar- 
rel with no one for deeming slavery a blessing. 
I deem it an evil, and would neither adopt it nor 
impose it upon others." 



146 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



It is doubtful i£ at this period Senator Benton 
could have effected the legislation desired by 
Mr. Ehot. In 1849 the " Jackson Resolutions," 
embodying the nullification doctrines of Calhoun, 
were introduced in the General Assembly of Mis- 
souri. They denied the right of Congress to 
legislate on the subject of slavery, excepting 
some special provisions relating to the abolition 
of the African slave trade, and to the recovery 
of fugitive slaves. It was also declared that the 
right to prohibit slavery in any territory be- 
longed exclusively to the people thereof. These 
resolutions closed with a covert threat of seces- 
sion should any Act of Congress be passed in 
conflict with the principles expressed. 

Benton, a strong Union man, vigorously op- 
posed these resolutions. His efforts to defeat 
them through an appeal to the people of the 
State of Missouri were unsuccessful, and he 
failed of reelection to the Senate in 1850. He 
represented Missouri in the House of Representa- 
tives from 1852 to 1854, and opposed the Kan- 
sas-Nebraska Bill. " The times were out of 
joint," and great as his influence had been, he 
could not "set them right." The country was in 
too inflamed a condition for the passage of eman- 
cipation laws, and slowly and surely the final 
catastrophe of civil war was approaching. Dr. 
Eliot at first hoped that it might be averted, but 
soon recognized that the conflict was inevitable. 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION 



147 



While working to ameliorate the attendant suffer- 
ing and sorrow, he renewed his efforts for the 
emancipation of the slave. 

In 1884, on the occasion of the fiftieth anni- 
versary of the Church of the Messiah, Dr. Eliot 
preached a sermon in which he declared that that 
church had always stood for the " cause of free- 
dom." " They who believe," he said, " in the 
intrinsic dignity of human nature can never will- 
ingly impose or endure tyranny over the mind 
or conscience or personal freedom. If man, how- 
ever degraded by sin or ignorance, is created in 
the image of God and capable of rising to the 
glorious liberty of the sons of God, then to en- 
slave a man both mind and body is the ultimate 
sin and crime against God and humanity. 

" Believing this, by the first principle of our 
religious faith, it was easy, it was unavoidable, 
for us to take the freedom side in the great na- 
tional controversy that began to assume its fierc- 
est aspect fifty years ago. In 1834 the angry 
disturbance of thought was just reaching this 
city. The Missouri Compromise had been made, 
and it was hopefully supposed that the question 
of slavery rights was settled forever. But in New 
England the aboHtion tide was fiercely rising, 
and the noise of its waves was already heard here. 
In the spring of 1834 Elijah P. Love joy began 
the free discussion of the subject, taking strong 
ground against slavery ; and in 1836 his press was 



148 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



destroyed by a mob. He went to a free State for 
free speech, and was murdered there. 

" In those early days our church took no part 
in such controversy, for it had as yet no standing 
place nor influence, nor had its minister. But I 
am glad to remember that from the very first it 
came to be quietly understood that we were on 
the side of freedom. In the winter of 1836, in 
the Presbyterian Church, before a citizens' meet- 
ing, I read an address on the history of Missouri ; 
and speaking of its admission as a slave State 
said that ' instead of bonfires and rejoicings the 
people should have clothed themselves in sack- 
cloth and ashes, in view of the social and moral 
evil thus entailed upon them.' The address was 
sent to the ' North American Review ' in Boston, 
but to my mortification, when printed, those sen- 
tences were left out, ' as being too radical.' Nor 
was any year permitted to pass without finding 
some occasion for similar and definite expression 
of where we stood. 

" In 1850, when the plans for building a new 
church were nearly matured, the whole country 
was under intense excitement because of the Fugi- 
tive Slave Law then recently passed. I thought 
that honesty demanded that I should define my 
position so that they who were invited to our sup- 
port should not be deceived, and I spoke plainly 
in opposition to that law, from the text, ' Do as 
you would be done by.' A few were repelled, 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION 149 



but our Society was strengthened. And so it came 
to pass that in 1856 not one of our regular sup- 
porters held a slave in bondage, except in two or 
three instances where emancipation would have 
been cruelty. 

" In looking back to those days I see nothing 
to repent of in this regard. It is true that an em- 
inent preacher in an Eastern city said to me, by 
way of rebuke, that ' for a Unitarian clergyman 
to preach in such manner as to be endured in a 
slave State was good evidence of his unfaithful- 
ness.' But if all the friends of freedom in St. 
Louis had acted on that principle, the leaven 
would have been taken from the lump, and Mis- 
souri, when the time of trial came, would have 
been lost to the Union, — a loss that might have 
changed the result of the Civil War. Where the 
service of God is the motive and the work, ' to 
possess one's soul in patience is sometimes the law 
of courage and wisdom and success.' . . . 

" It seems like a dream of fearful things, a night- 
mare from which one cannot wake himself, that 
terrible experience of twenty-four years ago. Up 
to the last minute we had said, ' Peace, peace,' 
and refused to beheve that an appeal to arms 
would come. But when the sword was once drawn, 
and the supreme law of the nation was defied and 
the life of the republic was threatened, we did not 
hesitate a moment where to stand. 

" I remember when, before a crowded audi- 



150 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

ence, I had declared my convictions in terms per- 
haps too emphatic, — for to some they gave unne- 
cessary offence, — at the close of the address the 
national hymn was sung. It began with a full 
volume of a thousand voices, as a triumphant 
song, hut tears ran down many a furrowed cheek, 
and voices trembled and fell off as if choked by 
strong feeling, and at its close the words were 
uttered with suppressed emotion and whispering 
lips. The great congregation separated almost in 
silence, with little mutual greeting, as those who 
had buried a friend. But with us the die was 
cast. Our choice of roads was taken. 

Full one fourth, numerically reckoned, of our 
usual congregation left us, believing me to be 
wrong ; and few of these returned. But the bone 
and sinew and heart and brains held fast, and the 
four years of crucial trial were bravely borne. Is 
it not all the more pleasant for us to remember 
that our whole influence, individually and collec- 
tively, was given to lessen the severities of strife, 
not unnecessarily to increase them ; to soften, 
not aggravate, the sufferings and hardships of 
war, remembering that those whom we resisted 
were hostes non inimici, opponents not enemies ; 
and that our hands could minister, as they did, 
to the wounded and sick of our own armies and 
equally to prisoners whom the strife brought to 
our doors ? We never forgot that it was a fra- 
ternal strife. . . . Therefore, when the conflict 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION 151 



was over, no bitterness of feeling remained 
towards us with those whom we had estranged, 
and some of them returned with undiminished 
regard. 

" Well, it is past and gone. The great experi- 
ment of a free republic has not yet been fully 
tried, but that one great step has been taken. 
Whenever as a nation, in every part of it, we shall 
have learned ' that we are members one of an- 
other, and whether one member suffer all the 
members suffer with it, or one member rejoice 
all the members rejoice with it,' then, and not be- 
fore, will the victory be complete. Our national 
motto will be vindicated. ^ From many we shall 
indeed be one.' " 



CHAPTER VII 



MISSOURI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 

An institution like slavery, which exists in op- 
position to the conscientious convictions of any 
large number of the citizens of a country, is a 
constant source of irritation. Compromises and 
concessions, based on no fundamental principle 
of right, may defer the inevitable conflict, but 
cannot permanently avert it ; and when it comes 
it must be fought to a definite issue. Thus was 
it in the Civil War, a struggle whose moral 
grandeur has never been equaled. 

In this fratricidal strife the North suffered 
and the South. Between the two the unhappy 
Border States, for which both parties were con- 
tending, became their battle-ground ; while at 
the same time they were socially distracted by 
the divided allegiance of their own citizens. No- 
where was the internal struggle fiercer or more 
sanguinary than in Missouri, where every town 
and village was divided against itself ; party dif- 
ferences whetted personal enmities, and guerrilla 
warfare became a cloak for wanton pillage and 
murder. 

The attitude of Missouri at the outbreak of 



MISSOURI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 153 



the Civil War was substantially the same as that 
of the other Border States. At the time of the 
presidential election in the fall of 1860, Lincoln 
had received one tenth only of the votes cast, 
and this represented the Unconditional Union 
vote of the State, principally German. The re- 
maining nine tenths of the people agreed that 
the North must give the South constitutional 
guarantees for the protection of slavery; and 
should this fail to be done, and the Southern 
States in consequence secede, the Federal gov- 
ernment must not undertake to coerce them to 
remain in the Union. 

The secessionists believed that a Southern 
Confederacy would be established, and that it 
was the duty of Missouri to unite with the South 
in resistance to the Federal government, should 
coercion be attempted. They were anxious and 
ready for secession. To this party belonged the 
great majority of the members of the General 
' Assembly, the governor, Claiborne F. Jackson, 
and other of&cials. 

The Conditional Union men regarded the pos- 
sible dissolution of the Union with sorrow and 
apprehension, and desired to avert such a catas- 
trophe. Although ready to declare with the 
secessionists that in the event of war Missom*i 
would resist any attempt to coerce seceding States, 
a position from which a large number eventually 
receded, they clung to the hope that the North 



154 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



would concede to the South certain constitutional 
guarantees for the better protection and exten- 
sion of slavery, and thereby the danger of seces- 
sion would be averted. The Unconditional Union 
party gradually won many accessions from their 
ranks. Hamilton R. Gamble, the " war governor," 
was prominent among Conditional Union men. 

Dr. Eliot was, as might be supposed, an Un- 
conditional Union man. This party unfortunately 
was divided into radicals and conservatives, 
whose differences of opinion as to methods to be 
employed were a constant source of distraction, 
and became very annoying to President Lincoln. 
Dr. Eliot always referred to himself as a " con- 
servative," a term which applied rather to his 
mode of action than his ultimate aim, which from 
the first contemplated nothing less than the final 
extinction of slavery. He frequently differed 
from more radical men as to the means to be 
used in the attainment of that object, deprecating 
unnecessary harshness, and keeping constantly 
in view the reestablishment of harmonious rela- 
tions, which he believed would follow the aboli- 
tion of slavery in Missouri. Through the confi- 
dence in his judgment, and in the singleness of 
his devotion to the national cause, with which 
later he inspired the President and the authori- 
ties at Washington, as well as many other per- 
sons with or without of&cial position, he was 
instrumental during the Civil War in effecting 



MISSOURI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 155 

tlie accomplishment of many important mea- 
sures. 

On Thanksgiving Day, November 29, I860, 
before yet secession was an accomplished fact, 
Dr. Eliot preached a sermon in which — after 
declaring that the appropriate subject belonging 
to the day would seem to be the National Union, 
the blessings which we have enjoyed under it 
and the madness of disturbing it — he asserted 
that he was not properly prepared to discuss the 
matter. " I do not know," he added, " how it 
may be with younger men ; but those of us who 
have come anywhere near to middle age, still 
more those who have gone beyond the point of 
middle age as I have, we feel upon this subject 
with a depth of feeling very difficult to express. 
... I cannot bring myself to believe that this 
evil (disunion) is imminent. It is too terrible. 
It passes the bounds of human feeling." Then, 
in hopeful strain, he declared his faith in the 
people, in the conservatism of the majority, and 
in an overruling Providence which " had not yet 
accomplished the great purposes designed to be 
accompHshed by this people." 

On the last day of December the Missouri 
General Assembly convened at Jefferson City 
amid great excitement. South Carolina had, on 
the 20th of December, passed an ordinance of 
secession, and most of the Southern States were 
on the verge of following her example. In the 



156 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



Missouri Senate there was but one Eepublican, 
in the House there were twelve. The governor, 
Claiborne F. Jackson, represented extreme South- 
ern sentiment. An ordinance of secession would 
have received almost unanimous endorsement of 
the legislature. Fortunately it was decided to 
refer the question to the people. A bill to call 
a state convention passed both Houses on the 
18th of January. 

On the 27th of that month Dr. Eliot preached 
a sermon on " The Higher Law Doctrine North 
and South." The " appeal to a higher law " was 
then an expression much in vogue among ex- 
tremists of both parties. Northern radicals and 
Southern secessionists. In commenting on the 
political situation Dr. Eliot said : " All over the 
land the question of disunion is freely discussed, 
— a word which we ought not to hear without 
shuddering, — and in our own State a conven- 
tion of the people has been called, to consider 
what part we shall take in that which many per- 
sons regard as the inevitable disruption. Perhaps 
in the present state of the public mind the call 
has been wisely made, though I do not myself 
see its necessity. But that such a convention is 
to be held, for such a purpose, especially if we 
admit its necessity, is a fact well calculated to 
excite patriotic fears, and to arouse us to the 
most diligent performance of our duty. As it 
looks to me from the teachings of history, from 



MISSOURI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 157 



our knowledge of human nature, and from the 
angry passions already working, both at the 
North and South, the question to be discussed 
may involve not only disunion, but social dis- 
organization, civil commotion, civil war, servile 
war, anarchy, military despotism, national ruin. 
It may be to decide upon the destruction of 
the grandest republic the world has ever seen ; 
upon the continued success or total failure of the 
great experiment of American freedom. 

" For the consideration of this question . . - 
at the end of two weeks' excited debate, a con- 
vention has been called, and in about two months 
it will have been determined under all the chances 
of excited popular elections what part this State 
shall take, for good or evil, in its final settlement. 
... In all the records of modern history, was 
there ever so momentous a question, so precipi- 
tately considered as this, which Missouri, in com- 
mon with the other Border States, is now, with 
such hot haste, placing in issue? Surely it is not 
a healthy condition of the public mind or of politi- 
cal morals in which the foundations of society 
can be so easily disturbed. There must be some 
hidden cause ... to account for the sudden and 
calamitous outbreak." 

This hidden cause of the precipitate movement 
towards dissolution of the Union Dr. Eliot found, 
not in slavery, nor the Fugitive Slave Law, nor 
in any conflict of principles, but in " disloyalty, 



158 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



contempt, and disregard of law." The question 
was, he declared, whether in a republic law can 
be made and held sacred. American loyalty was 
allegiance to the law, to the Constitution, to the 
Union. The law is our ultimate appeal. The 
Constitution is our monarchy. The Union is our 
king. Resistance to law, by communities or indi- 
viduals, is nothing else than rebellion. Disloyalty 
to the Union, and resistance to it, is nothing else 
than treason. 

" Resistance to constituted authorities," con- 
tinued Dr. Eliot, " has been and is defended under 
the captivating name of the ' Higher Law Doc- 
trine ; ' just as disloyalty and revolution find an 
attractive form in the doctrine of secession. . . . 
Resistance to law is defended as the ' appeal from 
Caesar to God.' . . . Under rare circumstances 
this higher law may stand in direct conflict with 
the ' authorities that be ; ' . . . but let us not be 
deceived by words. To the state or community 
this is nothing but the right of revolution ; to 
the individual it is the call to martyrdom. 

" To the State of Missouri, whatever the other 
States may do, the words of practical wisdom are 
very plain. Be loyal ; be conservative ; be delib- 
erate in all your counsels and all your actions. 
Exhaust all constitutional remedies before so 
much as considering any other. In the Union 
and under the law demand that, and only that, 
which is just and right. Consider maturely, and 



MISSOURI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 159 



count the cost, before taking the leap in the 
dark ; for the worst condition possible for us in 
the Union may be better than the best we can 
reasonably expect out of it ; and if the time ever 
comes, which God forbid ! for the severance of 
the sacred bonds of alliance between us and our 
sister States, let us not deceive ourselves by call- 
ing it ' peaceable secession.' It may seem to be 
so in its first movement. Perhaps no direct col- 
lision with the general government or the neigh- 
boring States would immediately occur, nor is it 
probable that measures of coercion would be 
rashly used. But a few months or years would 
certainly develop the act in its true character, in 
the fearful consequences of revolution and civil 
war." 

This sermon was delivered to a large audience, 
the church being filled to overflowing. It was 
asserted by a prominent member of the congre- 
gation that many of Dr. Eliot's hearers, who had 
previously wavered, allied themselves soon after- 
wards to the Union cause, and among them were 
persons of influence in the community who had 
previously assented to the proposition that Mis- 
souri must go with the South. The sermon was 
published and circulated throughout the Border 
States and in Boston, and Dr. Eliot received many 
letters of commendation and approval. 

On the 18th of February occurred the election 
of delegates to the state convention. Contrary 



160 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

to the expectations of the secessionists, the people 
of Missouri declared against secession by a ma- 
jority of eighty thousand. The result was dis- 
appointing to the South, although the conven- 
tion was very conservative. Dr. Eliot wrote in a 
private letter, afterwards published : " At first 
we made a fair show of loyalty, but it was loyalty 
with conditions. In our convention, which showed 
seventy to thirty for the Union, only four voted 
against the conditional clause." 

Early in January a military bill, empowering 
the governor to arm and equip the militia and 
get the State ready for war, was introduced in 
the General Assembly. After the people of Mis- 
souri declared against secession, the bill was 
defeated, and the legislature adjourned on the 
28th of March. When it reconvened on the 2d 
of May, the governor, in his opening address, 
recommended that " Missouri unite her destinies 
with those of the other slave States, and prepare 
to protect her people against all assailants." He 
urged the passage of the military bill, which 
would confer upon him almost dictatorial powers 
to resist Federal authority. The news of the 
taking of Camp Jackson removed all opposition, 
and the bill was passed. A military fund was 
created, into which the school fund and all 
other available moneys of the State were ordered 
to be paid, and in consequence it became neces- 
sary to close the public schools. 



MISSOURI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 161 

On June 12th, in virtue of the power thus 
conferred upon him by the legislature, Governor 
Jackson, in open hostility to the national govern- 
ment, called fifty thousand militia, over whom 
Sterling Price was appointed by him major-gen- 
eral, into the active service of the State, and in 
a remarkable proclamation called upon them to 
" drive out ignominiously the invaders," as he 
termed the Federal troops. This terminated the 
local self-government of Missouri ; and on the 
31st of July the Missouri state convention organ- 
ized a provisional government, with Hamilton R. 
Gamble as governor of Missouri. 

Early in 1861 General Harney had been placed 
at the head of the Department of the West. His 
sympathies were with the South, and although 
not actually disloyal, he had not sufficient mental 
acumen to penetrate the designs of the wily poli- 
ticians of Jefferson City. In the Price-Harney 
agreement he virtually turned Missouri over to 
the tender care of Sterling Price, pledging the 
Union forces to inactivity. He was summoned to 
Washington, and in his absence Lyon and Blair 
broke up the rebel encampment at Camp Jackson. 
On his return he issued a proclamation under date 
of May 14, very satisfactory to the Union men. 
We find in Dr. Eliot's journal a printed copy, and 
penciled on the margin this note : As I had a 
small hand in the following, I put it in. Written 
hy General E. A. Hitchcock and revised by me." 



162 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



In this document the military bill enacted at 
Jefferson City was characterized as an " indirect 
secession ordinance," and Camp Jackson was 
termed " a body of men notoriously organized in 
the interest of the secessionists." After citing 
facts in proof of this latter assertion, it was de- 
clared that " no government in the world would 
be entitled to respect that would tolerate for a 
moment such openly treasonable preparations." 
In the closing paragraph of the proclamation was 
this emphatic declaration : "I regard it as my 
plain path of duty to express to the people, in re- 
spectful but at the same time decided language, 
that within the field and scope of my authority 
the supreme law of the land must and shall be 
maintained." 

Below the printed extract we again find this 
entry in Dr. Eliot's writing : " The first effect 
of this proclamation was very good, but a lack of 
persistent consistency prevented its full effect. 
General Harney was relieved May 27, by orders 
dated the 16th, which Frank Blair held for use at 
his discretion." 

In this proclamation, to which General Harney 
attached his signature, it was stated that Missouri, 
from her geographical situation, was so essential 
to the Union that the whole power of the govern- 
ment of the United States, if necessary, would 
be exerted to maintain her in her position in the 
Union. Dr. Eliot always asserted that the pos- 



MISSOURI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 163 



session of St. Louis and Missouri was of supreme 
importance to the success of the Union cause. In 
a public addresSj delivered in 1864, he used these 
words : " What would have been lost to the Union 
if Missouri had been forced out as Arkansas and 
Louisiana were^ and how difficult, if not impossi- 
ble, it would have been to maintain the national 
cause, a glance at the map would show. I doubt 
if a Southern Confederacy would have been at- 
tempted if the loss of that State had been foreseen ; 
and the plans of rebellion were as carefully laid 
at Jefferson City (of which there is now proof) as 
at Charleston. The firmness with which St. Louis 
stood is the explanation of the unexpected result." 

Early in July, Major-General Fremont took 
command of the Department of the West. His 
position was one of great difficulty. Nominally 
loyal, Missouri was riddled with secession. Called 
upon to send troops to Washington, the State it- 
self had need of assistance from without against 
internal foes. So impressed was Dr. Eliot with 
the inability of the authorities at Washington to 
understand the serious condition of affairs in 
Missouri, and to thoroughly appreciate the impor- 
tance of securing the State to the Union cause, 
that on September 8, 1861, he sent the following 
letter to the Secretary of the Treasury : — 

Hon. S. p. Chase : 

Dear Sir, — Will you permit me again to address you upon 
public affairs, and to request you to lay my letter before the 



164 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

President if you consider it worthy of such regard. My de- 
sire is to caU your attention to the critical condition of Mis- 
souri, and the necessity of a vigorous policy and strong 
measures to save it from complete demoralization. The 
great difficulty is that two thirds of the people of the State 
are disloyal, and a large part of the remainder inactive. . . . 
The rebels seem determined to force Missouri from the 
Union by first making it impossible for Union men to live 
here. . . . Nothing but a strong army of occupation can hold 
the State and prevent its social destruction. 

A month ago we were on the brink of ruin. I have rea- 
son to know that an uprising of the secessionists, aided by 
large numbers of floating population not belonging to us in 
St. Louis, was fully arranged to welcome the rebel armies. 
The day was fixed, the plans matured. PiUow, Hardee, and 
McCuUough, counting confidently on Lyon's defeat, ex- 
pected to meet here by the 20th of August. They knew the 
utterly defenceless condition of St. Louis, that we had 
neither troops nor ammunition and no organization of the 
Union part of the people. They knew by their spies here 
that General Fremont had no means of reinforcing Lyon, 
and were therefore sure of victory. ... I knew at the time 
of the condition of the arsenal, that it was empty of arms and 
ammunition ; and of the troops in and near the city, that 
they were very few and badly officered, and nearly all of 
them at the point of disbanding. . . . Then came the neces- 
sity of sending reinforcements to Byrd's Point, threatened 
by Pillow, and Pilot Knob and Cape Girardeau threatened 
by Hardee, without which those points would have been 
taken ; and there were no troops left. Lyon knew all this, 
and knew that there was no help here, and would not be for 
some days. With a nobleness of which there are few exam- 
ples, with heroic self-sacrifice, he threw himself into the 
breach, determined to cripple the enemy and destroy their 
plans. He gained a splendid victory in seeming defeat, and 
saved the city and State. Let his name be held in honor as 
long as the Union endures. 



MISSOURI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 165 

He saved the city and the State for the time, and gave op- 
portunity which has been actively improved for defence and 
preparation. But the danger in the State is not yet passed, 
and there will be need of other equal sacrifices and unequal 
conflicts, unless the condition of Missouri is better under- 
stood, and greater strength concentrated here. I claim to 
be better informed than the majority of our citizens of the 
actual number and condition of troops here ; my interest in 
the hospitals and sick has led me to visit the camps and ob- 
serve the men both as to numbers and discipline, and I as- 
sure you, sir, that if you consider the importance of this 
State to the Union, and the disloyalty of its citizens, and the 
manifest eagerness of the slave power to keep it, we have 
not one half the strength we need. Missouri once lost could 
not be recovered, and its loss would be an almost fatal blow 
to the North. . . . Pardon my intrusion. My whole heart 
is in this cause. The war of barbarism against civilization, 
of slavery against freedom, is the great event of the nine- 
teenth century. May God protect the right ! 

Yours sincerely, 

W. G. Eliot. 

In August Dr. Eliot had addressed also Attor- 
ney-General Bates, on the necessity of sending 
reinforcements to Missouri to save the State to 
the Union. The attorney-general appears to 
have realized the importance of such a step, as 
he wrote : " Next after the sure defence of the 
city (Washington), and the sure possession of 
the great strategic point, Cairo, I have for sev- 
eral months back urged the concentration of a 
force in Missouri that would look down opposition, 
that would have prevented insurrection, secured 
internal tranquillity, and saved the necessity of 
conquest." 



166 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

In a private letter, later published, Dr. Eliot 
expressed tlie opinion that after the capture of 
Camp Jackson a large army should immediately 
have been brought into Missouri, and resistance 
made impossible. " The heroic Lyon/' wrote Dr. 
Eliot, " undertook to effect with ten thousand men 
what would have been hard work for fifty thou- 
sand, — the control of the State. Everywhere he 
found himself marching through a hostile coun- 
try. A very few followed him. But while Price's 
army increased like a rolling snowball, and men 
joined his ranks with shotguns, pistols, scythes, 
so eager were they to fight, Lyon's army dwindled 
day by day. It must be recruited from St. Louis, 
if at all." As a result of this inability on the part 
of the government to realize fully the needs of 
Missouri, Dr. Eliot felt that General Fremont 
had been held responsible for misfortunes he was 
unable to avert. 

In his letter to Secretary Chase Dr. Eliot had 
referred to his unusual opportunities of judging 
of the actual number and condition of troops in 
St. Louis, his interest in the hospitals and sick 
having led him to visit the camps and observe 
the men both as to numbers and disciphne. 
With the discipline he was far from satisfied, 
and on September 2 he wrote a letter to Mrs. 
Fremont, requesting that she bring it to the 
attention of the General. In this communication 
he expressed the conviction that both officers and 



MISSOURI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 167 

men were lacking in elevation of moral tone and 
the higher incentives of patriotism. The officers, 
being inexperienced, could not enforce that strict 
military discipline which " in some degree takes 
the place of higher principle." He found "a 
profanity and coarseness of speech, a neglect of 
cleanliness and the amenities of life, a disregard 
of any observance of Sunday, and httle to remind 
the men that they were members of a Christian 
community." Two things, he felt, were required 
in the camps, " discipline and enthusiasm, the 
enthusiasm of loyalty founded upon allegiance 
to God." He suggested that a more careful sys- 
tem be devised for the moral and religious cul- 
ture of the men, and that more attention be paid 
to the decencies of life. Something, he thought, 
might be accomplished by the appointment of 
faithful chaplains, the establishment of hospital 
libraries, and by measures of sanitary reform ; but 
the controlling influence must proceed from the 
high officers. " A distinct recognition of the 
principles above named," he wrote, " with a pro- 
hibition of the vices and vulgarities referred to, 
if made in a general order, would do a world of 
good. It would introduce a new feature in camp 
life, and if read before every regiment at dress 
parade every Sunday, by the colonel himself, 
would soon establish a standard of soldierly be- 
havior, to which officers and men would conform." 
This letter was sent September 3, 1861, and 



168 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

further thought on the matter seems to have en- 
gendered in Dr. Eliot's own mind a plan for the 
organization of a Western Sanitary Commission. 
" Suggestions " to that effect, in the form of a 
plan of organization, were forwarded the follow- 
ing day to General and Mrs. Fremont, were cop- 
ied by the latter from Dr. Eliot's manuscript 
exactly as written, and were issued by the Gen- 
eral, September 10, as Special Order 159. Thus 
quickly was the Western Sanitary Commission 
created. 

Whatever were General Fremont's failings as 
a military leader, he was always interested and 
active in the humanities of war. When he is- 
sued his proclamation of freedom to the slaves of 
disloyal masters in Missouri, August 30, 1861, 
Dr. Ehot hailed it as " the beginning of the 
end," and was of the opinion that the revoca- 
tion of the order was a mistake, in which view he 
showed that at heart he was more radical than 
conservative. A year later. President Lincoln, 
in addressing the Border State delegation on the 
subject of compensated emancipation, said, re- 
ferring to the slave States : " You and I know 
what the lever of their power is. Break that 
lever before their faces, and they can shake you 
no more forever." Dr. Eliot believed that slavery 
was the lever of the disloyal, and to break that 
lever early in the war would end the fratricidal 
contest. Patient as he was, when he believed the 



MISSOURI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 1G9 



moment for action had come, he could scarcely 
brook a moment's delay. Yet Lincoln was right 1 
Fremont's act might have hastened the end of 
the strife in Missouri, but it transcended the 
provisions of the Congressional Confiscation 
Act of August 6, 1861, forced upon the Presi- 
dent a responsibility of individual initiative 
which he could not well assume, and might in 
the country at large have produced a reaction of 
feeling. 

On the 18th of August, 1861, as " a matter 
of positive obligation," since his " convictions 
were too strong to be repressed," Dr. Eliot 
preached a patriotic sermon, which was published 
under the title of " Loyalty and Religion." In 
this address he reaffirmed with even greater em- 
phasis the duties of citizenship. Premising that 
the supreme allegiance is to God, he declared 
that " a part of our duty to God was duty to the 
State," that " submission to law was among the 
prime duties of religion," and that the " Supreme 
Law of the Land " partook " of the sacredness 
of the Supreme Law of God." 

The sermon on " The Higher Law " had been 
delivered while war was still a menace. Now it was 
a fearful reality, and Missouri was passing through 
one of its darkest periods of trial. The war. Dr. 
Eliot believed, could not have been averted. If 
the general government had consented to the 
dismemberment of the nation and its own virtual 



170 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



destruction without one effort made, or one blow 
struck, it would have been a thing without par- 
allel in history. As for Dr. Eliot himself, he 
declared he must speak on this subject, it was 
a matter of positive obligation, and his long 
citizenship, during which no one had worked 
harder for the welfare of St. Louis than he, en- 
titled him to a respectful hearing. " My life, my 
happiness, my hopes," he declared, " whether of 
usefulness or of enjoyment, are so intertwined 
with the prosperity of St. Louis, that I have no 
thought beyond. To meet with failure here is 
to have failed in the work of life." " I would 
not live," he added, " in a community whose 
patriotism is dead, for it would not be worth 
working for, nor capable of improvement." 

Beheving and maintaining that armed neuti'al- 
ity was an impracticable position, that citizens of 
Missouri must stand on one side or the other, and 
that not to be loyal was to be disloyal. Dr. Eliot 
said : " At present the great battle for the Union 
is here. If Missouri were permanently lost to the 
Union, it would be an irreparable blow, and the 
strength of the government would be effectually 
broken. . . . We may take it for granted, there- 
fore, that the most terrible struggle will take place, 
even to the devastation of the whole State, before 
its secession or its conquest by the South will 
be conceded. . . . What then shall we do ? How 
manifest allegiance and resist revolution? . . . 



MISSOURI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 171 



We should give our whole undivided influence, 
by word and deed, to sustain the cause of the 
United States, by holding our own State in the 
Union. 

"... War is not a Christian work, and the 
time will come for its abolition, as for that of 
all other social wrongs and evils. But it has not 
come yet, and under an existing state of war our 
Christian duties remain not less than in time of 
peace. ... I hold it a Christian duty to defend 
oar country from invasion and rebellion, peace- 
ably if we can, forcibly if we must. Otherwise 
society would be completely in the hands of the 
wicked, and social progress would be impossible. 
There is also a difference in the conduct of war- 
fare, and we may make it a war of barbarism, or 
of comparative humanity and civilization. . . . 
Let us do our part to keep Christian principles 
aHve. . . . There are no circumstances in life un- 
der which a Christian may not do his whole duty. 
Our duty as patriots and our duty as Christians 
must be done, if at all, at one and the same time. 
. . . The seeming conflict of duties will end in 
the noblest service that can be performed by 
man." 

Some among the crowded audience who lis- 
tened to this sermon did not again return to the 
Church of the Messiah. 

When it was decided that Dr. Eliot should 
go to Washington, in October, 1861, on business 



172 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



connected with the Western Sanitary Commis- 
sion, he thought it would be a favorable oppor- 
tunity, in his interview with President Lincoln, 
to represent to him the condition and needs of 
Missouri. Colonel T. T. Gantt thereupon wrote 
to Governor Gamble requesting him to state, in 
a letter addressed either to the President or Dr. 
Eliot himself, the views which he, the governor, 
had said he would express to the authorities at 
Washington ; namely, " that Missouri had neither 
money nor credit ; that if any cooperation on the 
part of our state forces were desired, they must 
be furnished with arms and paid by the United 
States, and that this was the indispensable con- 
dition of any such cooperation ; that the duty of 
the United States to protect us from invasion and 
to suppress insurrection obliged the United States 
to perform the task, either by United States troops, 
or by state troops paid by the United States." 
In conclusion, Colonel Gantt again requested the 
governor to declare in writing his " conviction 
of the absolutely destitute condition of Missouri, 
and of the aid which state forces might give to 
the national cause in the State, if equipped and 
paid by the United States, and of the duty of the 
United States to do this." 

On the outside of a copy of this letter Dr. Eliot 
wrote in pencil : " Copy of letter from Mr. Gantt 
to Governor Gamble, from whom I took letter to 
President." That the interview was a successful 



MISSOURI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 173 



one is proved by the organization of the state 
militia that same fall on the terms suggested in 
Governor Gamble's letter, through a special agree- 
ment between himself and the President. Over 
this militia General Schofield was placed in com- 
mand. 

The fight for Missouri as a slave State was, 
after other methods failed, carried on by guer- 
rilla warfare. Price, Hindman, and other rebel 
generals, arrogating to themselves dictatorial pow- 
ers, gave authority to various persons to raise 
companies and regiments to operate as guerrillas. 
The helpless Union refugees fleeing before them 
bore witness to their barbarities. In the spring 
and summer of 1862, the rebel general, Hindman, 
organized a number of these lawless bands. To 
combat this evil throughout the State, and per- 
form the service of an army of occupation, by an 
order of Governor Gamble, issued July 22, 1862, 
the militia of the State was enrolled. Unlike the 
state militia, paid by the government, the enrolled 
militia was exclusively a state organization, of 
which the expenses must be met by the State. 
There is record of at least one voluntary contri- 
bution for this object, in a letter under date of 
July 29, 1862, from General Schofield to Dr. 
Eliot, acknowledging from him the receipt of 
twenty-five dollars as " the first contribution to 
the State Fund." Probably Dr. EHot thought that 
such action would be more generally taken, but 



174 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



there is no record that his example was followed ; 
and as the state treasury was empty^ and it was 
very difficult to collect taxes, the only way of 
obtaining the necessary funds for arming and 
organizing the militia seemed at the time to be 
through substitute money or by assessments on 
the disloyal. 

In an order issued by General Schofield, Au- 
gust 28, 1862, it was announced that an assess- 
ment of half a milhon dollars would be collected 
from secessionists and Southern sympathizers in 
St. Louis County to defray the expenses of the 
enrolled militia. 

Kegarding the wisdom of this order there was 
great difference of opinion. It was indeed true, 
as General Schofield stated, that lawless bands 
could not exist a single week in Missouri but for 
the aid of influential and wealthy sympathizers ; 
yet there were many objections to the enforce- 
ment of so arbitrary a measure. Thus thought 
Dr. Eliot, and he drew up a memorial wherein 
he set forth good and sufficient reasons why the 
order of assessment should be revoked. This 
memorial was forwarded to Governor Gamble, 
December 1, 1862. It had been Dr. Eliot's in- 
tention to have the dociunent signed by a num- 
ber of influential persons, but after several had 
shown hesitation in doing so, he forwarded it to 
Governor Gamble over his own signature only. 
The memorial was as follows : — 



MISSOURI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 175 



To HIS Excellency Gov. H. R, Gamble : 

Governor, — The undersigned, your memorialists, who 
are now, and always have been Unconditional Union men, 
and hearty supporters of the government, most respectfully 
represent : That the assessment now in progress j to be 
levied upon secessionists and Southern sympathizers, is 
working evil in this community, and doing great harm to 
the Union cause. 

Among our citizens there are all shades of opinion, from 
that kind of neutrality which is little better than treason, 
through all the grades of lukewarmness and hesitancy, up 
to the unqualified loyalty which your memorialists in com- 
mon with yourself claim to possess. To assort and classify 
these, so as to indicate the dividing line of loyalty and dis- 
loyalty, and to establish the ratio of payment by those fall- 
ing below it, is a task of great difficulty. If it can be done 
at all, it must be by patient investigation and after hearing 
evidence on both sides, giving every person the opportunity 
of self-defense. It would require not only a competent tri- 
bunal, sitting for a great length of time, and possessed of 
full authority to call and examine witnesses under oath, but 
also a kind and degree of scrutiny inconsistent with repub- 
lican institutions. Such an investigation, so far as practica- 
ble, has been attempted in the present case ; but although 
the character and standing of the members of the Assess- 
ment Board give assurance that the faithful endeavor to be 
just and impartial has been made, yet they have been com- 
pelled to admit hearsay evidence, rumors, and " general 
impressions," and have in no case required witnesses to 
testify under oath. The unavoidable consequence has been 
that many feel themselves deeply aggrieved, not having sup- 
posed themselves liable to the suspicion of disloyalty ; many 
escape assessment, who, if any, deserve it; and a general 
impression of inequality in the rule and ratio of assess- 
ment prevails. This was unavoidable because no two tribu- 
nals could agree upon the details of such assessment either 



176 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



as to persons or amounts to be assessed, without more com- 
plete knowledge of facts than can be obtained from ex parte 
testimony and current reports. Nothing short of a thor- 
oughly judicial investigation could lead to a satisfactory 
result. 

Your memorialists also respectfully represent that no- 
thing but clear evidence of disloyalty would justify assess- 
ment, and that where such evidence exists, the party so 
proved guilty should not be permitted to remain in the com- 
munity without coming under heavy bonds, and in extreme 
cases should be required to go " beyond the lines." To keep 
such persons here, especially after they have been exas- 
perated by fines, and held up to public contempt, is danger- 
ous to the public peace, and gives the most favorable oppor- 
tunity for treasonable practice. The great object is to free 
the community from all who are determined to promote 
disorder, and to give every encouragement to those who 
remain to fulfill the duties of loyalty and good citizenship. 
The doubtful should be brought back if possible, the waver- 
ing should be confirmed, and a door opened for the return of 
those who see the error of the past. The wise and energetic 
measures taken in this State the last six months, and since 
the assessment was ordered, have wrought a great change 
in these respects. The hope of disturbing the " status " 
of Missouri is well-nigh abandoned, and hundreds of those 
who, until lately, have scarcely known their own minds, are 
now openly avowing themselves on the right side. Enlight- 
ened policy, as well as the liberality of justice, dictates that 
where such avowal is seemingly made in good faith, and 
where no overt act has been committed, the retribution of 
the past should be foregone. Social quiet and the peace of 
neighborhood and returning homogeneousness of feeling 
should be encouraged by all practicable means, and by such 
methods of action the cause of loyalty is best strengthened. 
The bitterness likely to be engendered by the progressing 
assessment will renew the personal hostilities which were 



MISSOURI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 177 



beginning to disappear, and thus fanned, the secession ele- 
ment will refuse to die. 

Your memorialists therefore respectfully petition, that 
you will use your influence, Governor Gamble, with the 
commanding general, and with the authorities at Wash- 
ington, that the proceedings in assessment be stayed, at 
least until other methods of obtaining the funds required by 
the State shall have been first tried. Perhaps if the case 
were fully presented before Congress, the just demands of 
the State would be met, and the payment of our state mili- 
tia, in defense of the common cause, would be made. If 
not, a special tax by the state legislature would be a pre- 
ferable plan to that now adopted, and if unavoidable, after 
failure of other methods, the assessment could then be 
enforced as a last resort. But it is the opinion of your 
memorialists, that under anything short of congressional 
authority and judicial action, such assessments would only 
amount to a forced loan, for which reclamation would 
eventually be made and sustained. 
December 1, 1862. 

This memorial was signed " W. G. Eliot " 
only. 

At the time this memorial was drawn up the 
banks of St. Louis had made a loan of $150,000 
to the State to purchase arms for the militia. 
Payment had been guaranteed from funds to 
be collected through the proposed assessment of 
half a million dollars. The memorial was sent to 
Governor Gamble, December 1, 1862. On the 
following day the governor wrote to a member 
of the Board of Assessment to ascertain whether 
the banks making the loan would consent to re- 
lease the security offered by the assessment, and 



178 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



rely upon the State for the repayment of the 
money expended in its service. To this proposi- 
tion all the banks immediately assented. 

In a copy of the " Democrat/' the leading Re- 
pubHcan newspaper in St. Louis at that time, we 
find in the issue of June 13, 1863, an article 
headed " Interesting History." It is signed by 
a member of the Assessment Committee, James 
S. Thomas. The remaining incidents of this war 
episode are thus related by Mr. Thomas : " On 
the 15th of December, 1862, the Board was 
directed by General Curtis, under an order from 
Washington, to suspend for the present their 
collections. Two days afterwards I met Thomas 
J. Thompson of this county (who had been noti- 
fied of his assessment and notified to pay), on 
Fourth Street. He informed me that he and 
Richard C. Shackelford, who was also assessed, 
had just arrived from Washington ; that before 
he left (St. Louis) Governor Gamble gave them 
strong letters to Mr. Edward Bates at Washing- 
ton, advising the setting aside of the assessment ; 
that immediately on his arrival and delivery of 
Governor Gamble's letters, Mr. Bates went with 
them to see the President, and, upon their own 
statement. Governor Gamble's strong letters, and 
Mr. Bates's solicitations, one hour after their 
arrival at the President's house a telegram was 
written in their presence and sent to General 
Curtis, directing a suspension of the collections 



MISSOURI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 179 



until further orders. At the same time he (Mr. 
Thompson) handed me a copy of the telegram^ 
saying that ^ the President gave him a copy so 
there should be no mistake, and that the Presi- 
dent was a mighty nice plain man, Hke yourself, 
and you should go to Washington to see him.' " 
" On the 25th of December/' continues Mr. 
Thomas, " the Board of Assessors called on Gen- 
eral Curtis at his headquarters, when the General 
informed the Board that ^ , . . a good Union 
man, had got up a petition of remonstrance with 
many signatures (or ' rigmarole ' as the General 
termed it), and that that petition after having 
been shown to him was taken to General Halleck 
at Washington, and on the strength of that peti- 
tion and letters of Governor Gamble, the assess- 
ment was suspended by order of General Halleck. 
The petition of the ^ . . . set forth that this as- 
sessment was an arbitrary and oppressive proceed- 
ing." 

Among Dr. Eliot's papers, there is an " official 
copy for Rev. Mr. Eliot " of a letter from Gen- 
eral Halleck to General Curtis. It is addressed to 
Major-General S. R. Curtis, St. Louis. 

December 15, 1862. 
Gekeral, — I have received from the Rev. Dr. Eliot of 
St. Louis the documents forwarded by you in relation to the 
assessments ordered by Brigadier-General Schofield on the 
city and county of St. Louis, and have submitted them to 
the Secretary of War for his decision. 

1 Rev. Dr. Eliot. 



180 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



I am instructed to say in reply that, as there seems to be 
no present military necessity for the enforcement of this 
assessment, aU proceedings under the order of General 
Schofield will be suspended. Should new insurrections oc- 
cur in Missouri, and the people of St. Louis again afford 
aid and comfort to the enemy, they may expect to suffer 
the legitimate consequences of such acts of treason. 
Your obt. servant, 

H. W. Halleck, 
General-in-Chief. 

Official copy, 
I. C. Kelton, 

Asst. Adjutant-General. 

In the St. Louis " Kepublican " of May 16, 1875, 
appeared an account of the assessment proceed- 
ings of 1862, from which a paragraph follows : 
" The memorial or petition was written and signed 
by a clergyman of this city, who was known to 
be very active in the Union cause and a personal 
friend of President Lincoln. It was addressed to 
Governor Gamble, and by him endorsed and for- 
warded to the President. Mr. Lincoln read the 
memorial with care, turned it over and endorsed 
upon it : ' Stop the whole thing by telegraph/ 
and sent it to General Halleck." 

On May 20, 1875, four days later, the fol- 
lowing additional statement was made in an edi- 
torial in the " Republican " : " We have been so 
frequently asked since Sunday who was the au- 
thor of the memorial which caused the suspension 
of the assessment of 1862, that we regret having 
omitted his name from General Halleck' s order 



MISSOURI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 181 



in which it appears. The writer and only signer 
of the memorial was the Rev. Dr. Eliot, who was 
at the time a member of the Western Sanitary 
Commission, which had the hospitals of the West- 
ern army under its control. It is to the credit of 
that Commission . . . that it obtained an order 
from Generals Fremont and Halleck to treat the 
sick and wounded of the Union and Confederate 
armies in exactly the same way, and to bury their 
dead with the same care and respect. In this way 
the severities of war were at least diminished, if 
not removed." 

Military assessments were a severe remedy for 
a terrible evil. They were not in accordance with 
Lincoln's general policy, and an order to suspend 
them throughout the State of Missouri was issued 
January 20, 1863, by the Secretary of War. 



CHAPTER VIII 

EMANCIPATION AS A WAR MEASURE 

From the beginning of the Civil War, Dr. Eliot 
believed that the extinction of slavery was its logi- 
cal consequence and the only permanent solution 
of the otherwise irreconcilable conflict. This was 
his practical judgment, and also a conviction en- 
gendered by faith in an overruling Providence, 
whose larger purpose gradually unifies and ab- 
sorbs aU conflicting aims. 

The congressional resolutions and enactments 
affecting the poHtical status of the former slave, 
which were passed during the war period, and 
later embodied in the thirteenth and fourteenth 
constitutional amendments, indicate his progress 
from the condition of a chattel and " contraband 
of war " to that of freedman, soldier, and citizen 
of the republic. 

Each successive step towards emancipation was 
hailed by Dr. Eliot as " the beginning of the end." 
He thus characterized the issuance of Fremont's 
order, granting freedom to the slaves of disloyal 
masters in Missouri, and the President's initia- 
tory and final proclamations of emancipation. He 
was much disappointed, as already noted, by the 




EMANCIPATION AS A WAE MEASURE 183 



revocation of Fremont's order, and his brother, 
Hon. Thomas Dawes Eliot, representative to 
Congress from Massachusetts, evidently shared 
his opinions and feelings in the matter ; for at 
the opening session of Congress, on December 2, 
1861, he introduced in the House of Kepresent- 
atives a resolution wherein it was af&rmed that 
in the judgment of that body the President of the 
United States, as the commander-in-chief of the 
army, had " the right to emancipate all persons 
held as slaves in any military district in a state of 
insurrection against the national government." 
It was also respectfully advised " that such order 
of emancipation be issued whenever the same 
will avail to weaken the power of the rebels in 
arms, or to strengthen the military power of loyal 
forces." This was an assertion of the principle 
finally embodied in the President's Proclamation 
of Emancipation, which extended its application 
to include the entire area in rebellion. The pas- 
sage of such a resolution at this time would have 
conferred on the chief executive authority from 
Congress to approve such an order as General 
Fremont's. The resolution, however, was simply 
referred to the Committee on Judiciary. It was 
probably drawn up by Dr. Eliot himself and in- 
troduced by his brother at his request. 

After President Lincoln's recommendation to 
Congress of a plan of compensated abolition of 
slavery in the border slave States, and the pas- 



184 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



sage of a joint resolution of Congress, approved 
April, 1862, which pledged the aid of the gov- 
ernment to any loyal State desiring to avail itself 
of this offer, it seemed as if a wise and satis- 
factory solution of a vexed problem had been 
reached. Unfortunately, a majority of the dele- 
gates from the border slave States refused to 
entertain the proposition. The President's pre- 
liminary proclamation of coming emancipation, 
issued September 22, 1862, contained a renewal 
of this offer of compensation of pecuniary aid to 
all loyal States who would voluntarily adopt the 
immediate or gradual abolition of slavery within 
their respective limits. 

Two of the Eepublican members to Congress 
from Missouri, Senator Henderson and Repre- 
sentative Noell, each introduced, the one in the 
Senate, December 10, 1862, and the other in the 
House on the following day, a bill designed to 
aid the State of Missouri in compensated eman- 
cipation. The former bill called for an appropri- 
ation of twenty millions, the latter, ten millions, 
which latter bill passed the House by a large 
majority. It was sent to the Senate, and there 
superseded the Senate bill. As a result there was 
a vigorous discussion in the Senate as to which 
of the two amounts designated was the proper 
appropriation. On January 14, 1863, Dr. EHot 
wrote to his brother, Hon. Thomas Dawes Eliot, 
in Washington, urging him to use all his influence 



EMANCIPATION AS A WAR MEASURE 185 



in the House towards effecting an acceptance 
of the terms proposed in the Senate. He, Dr. 
Ehot, would have been " satisfied " with less 
than twenty millions, but he did not regard the 
amount as excessive, considering that the aboli- 
tion of slavery in Missouri would secure to the 
Union cause " a State as large as England, in the 
centre of the Union, commanding the highway 
to the Pacific, controlling the mouths of the Illi- 
nois and Ohio rivers, five hundred miles of the 
Mississippi, the whole of the Missouri (twenty- 
seven hundred miles of navigable stream), pos- 
sessing unexcelled wealth . . . and containing 
within itself all the requisites of a great nation." 

"Look at it on the map," Dr. Eliot wrote, 
" and it is a mihtary, social, and political neces- 
sity to the Union. ... It secures all west of it 
in quiet possession, and so commands Arkansas 
and the Southwest in a military sense, that if 
Missouri were heartily and thoroughly in the 
Union cause, Arkansas would be firmly held, and 
Louisiana and Texas soon reconquered. . . . The 
accidents of war may throw everything back, and 
another army be needed for holding it. Missouri 
cannot be accounted safe in the Union, or counted 
anything but an element of weakness, until slav- 
ery is killed. Make it free on whatever terms, 
and it will be the first death blow to slavery. It 
will be worth the whole cost of the war. ... 

" The Senate bill would be instantly accepted 



186 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



by the legislature, and would carry the State 
almost without dissent. From that moment Mis- 
souri would be as stanch as Massachusetts. . . . 

" The interests at stake are too vast for minor 
differences. ... I beg of you to take hold of 
this as the great work of this session. . . . Call 
together the leading RepubHcans in Senate and 
House and put this whole subject before them. 
You need not tell them that I am a younger 
brother and parson, but that nobody in Mis- 
souri has better opportunity of observation than 
I have, and no one has worked harder or to 
better effect for the Union and freedom cause. 
I tell you that Missouri is not yet safe, and is 
worth hiiying at double the amount asked. Far 
more than twenty millions will be saved in a six 
months' prosecution of the war. ... As quiet 
returns to each part of the State, labor rises in 
value, and now is the time, if ever, for the blow 
to be struck. . . . 

" Do everything you can to crowd sail. If the 
senators could only see the value of time, and 
the moral effect of a new free State, and the 
danger of reaction on this subject, they would 
not lose a day ; and if the same is felt in the 
House, they will not mince matters when the 
Senate bill reaches them." 

Hon. Thomas D. Eliot had suggested that Dr. 
Eliot write to senators and representatives, urging 
the passage of this bill. Dr. Eliot thus endorsed 



EMANCIPATION AS A WAR MEASURE 187 



his brother's letter : " Had written to Hon. Henry 
Wilson February 1st, and again February 7th. 
Also wrote to Charles Sumner February 5th. 
Wrote to Norman Cutter at Jefferson City Feb- 
ruary 3d." 

The failure of Lincoln's favorite scheme of 
compensated emancipation is matter of history. 
As to the Missouri bill, the Senate finally fixed 
the amount of compensation at fifteen millions ; 
but when the bill was sent back to the House, it was 
bitterly opposed by several pro-slavery representa- 
tives from Missouri, who, with the Democratic 
minority, succeeded by dilatory parHamentary tac- 
tics in preventing it from reaching a vote. 

Two newspaper articles relative to this measure 
were written and published by Dr. Eliot. When 
the first appeared, February 15, 1863, the bill 
to aid the State of Missouri in compensated eman- 
cipation had been sent from the Senate to the 
House, where it was still pending. Evidently its 
opponents had asserted that " with or without 
the bill " slavery could not last in Missouri until 
1876. Slavery," Dr. Ehot declared, "is not 
dead in Missouri, though in a good position to be 
killed. Its open advocates and pretended enemies 
are using immense efforts to keep it ahve by sow- 
ing seeds of discord among its real opponents, 
and by every agency, fair or foul. . . . They are 
continually saying that slavery is already played 
out. Let it alone and it will die. . . . But it will 



188 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

not die out until it is killed out. ... If the 
present opportunity is lost, Missouri may remain 
a slave State until the end of the century or 
longer. We therefore warn our friends at Wash- 
ington not to be deceived. The victory is not yet 
gained." 

In the second article, pubhshed March 19, 
1863, under the heading " Who is Responsible? " 
Dr. Eliot states that he was in Washington while 
the Missouri Compensation Bill was under dis- 
cussion, and that several of the senators and 
representatives from free States in the West op- 
posed the bill on the ground that if " Missouri 
became a free State she would be the powerful 
and successful competitor of the neighboring free 
States." This statement was made by Dr. Eliot, 
from his own knowledge, in proof of his assertion 
that the abolition of slavery in Missouri would be 
of inestimable value to that State. 

During the spring of 1863, the Missouri Gen- 
eral Assembly was vainly endeavoring to find a 
common basis of agreement for gradual emanci- 
pation in that State. A majority of the members 
were in favor of such action, but the spirit of 
dissension was rife among them, and prevented 
agreement on any measure satisfactory to both 
parties. Radicals and Conservatives. The matter 
was further complicated by party and personal 
dissension over the choice of United States sena- 
tors, and doubts regarding the constitutional 



EMANCIPATION AS A WAR MEASURE 189 



limitations on the power of the General Assembly 
to abolish slavery. Under the nom de plume of 
" Crisis/' Dr. Eliot published four articles ad- 
dressed to " The Emancipationist Members of the 
General Assembly of Missouri." They presented 
logical arguments, and contained at the same time 
an earnest appeal to the legislators to make Mis- 
souri a free State, and thereby strike the severest 
blow that the slave system had ever received. 
"Loyalty and Emancipation/' Dr. Eliot asserted, 
"go together. Secession and slavery are twin 
sisters. Both questions must be settled at once, 
and it is for you, Legislators of Missouri, to settle 
them. Never was a grander work committed to 
any body of men. Never was there an opportunity 
of nobler service since the world began." 

Dr. Eliot had previously drawn up a bill whose 
main provision was that all children born of slave 
mothers, on and after the first day of January, 
1864, should be free. He records the fact that 
this bill was " reported by a majority of the House 
Committee verbatim, as prepared by W. G. Eliot." 

" My reason for advocating the ' Unborn Chil- 
dren Emancipation Bill,' " he wrote, in his second 
appeal to the " Emancipationist Members of the 
Assembly," "is not that I prefer this to all other 
methods, but because it is practicable. Better 
plans might be devised, but some of them are 
hindered by the Constitution, and upon others 
you would not be able to agree. This bill is so 



190 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



moderate in its requirements, and so gradual in 
its operation, that no friend of emancipation can 
oppose it, except on the ground of its not going 
far enough. To such objection we say, when we 
cannot do all we desire, the part of wisdom is to 
do all we can." 

Before the General Assembly dissolved, in let- 
ters published March 20 and March 23, 1863, 
and addressed as in the previous instance to the 
Emancipationist Members of that body. Dr. Eliot 
urged upon them the calling of a convention 
with a view to adopting a general system of 
gradual emancipation. " If," he wrote, " from 
whatever cause — of bad management, of personal 
jealousies, of office-seeking, of half -treachery, or 
anything else — you adjourn without having 
dojie anything for emancipation, you will have 
neglected the one great purpose for which you 
were appointed to office, and will leave the State 
to endure all the evils of dissension and civil 
strife from which you were elected to save her." 

Whether from party differences or the doubts 
fostered by the pro-slavery party as to the consti- 
tutional limitations on the action of the General 
Assembly in such matters, it soon became evi- 
dent that the legislature would adjourn without 
passing a bill providing for gradual emancipa- 
tion, thus leaving the matter to be decided by 
a convention. The question then arose as to 
whether the existing Missouri convention should 



EMANCIPATION AS A WAR MEASURE 191 



he reconvened, or delegates to a new convention 
be elected. The latter course was desired by 
the Kadicals, since with the change of sentiment 
in Missouri the old convention elected in 1861 
was deemed too conservative to fairly represent 
the people of the State. As no agreement be- 
tween the two parties was reached, the Assembly 
dissolved, leaving further action to Governor 
Gamble. 

On the 15th of April, 1863, Governor Gamble 
summoned the existing convention to assemble 
at the capitol in the city of Jelierson, on the 
fifteenth day of June next, then and there to 
consult and act upon the subject of emancipa- 
tion of slaves, and such other matters as may be 
connected with the peace and prosperity of the 
State." On the 14th of June, the Sunday pre- 
ceding, Dr. Eliot offered a prayer at the Church 
of the Messiah, in which he said : " We pray for 
the convention just about to meet, and for all its 
members, for the governor, by whom it is called, 
and for the people whom it represents. May 
it have grace given to it to do its appointed work 
well and thoroughly, to restore quiet and peace 
and good order to the whole State, together with 
the inestimable blessing of entire freedom, by en- 
acting laws for the extinguishment of slavery as 
a social institution at the earliest practicable day. 
. . . We thank Thee for this near prospect of 
deliverance from so great an evil, so great a wrong." 



192 WILLIAM GREENLEAP ELIOT 



The convention thus reconvened, as might 
have been expected from so conservative a body, 
passed an emancipation bill that proved in- 
adequate and unsatisfactory. Although it was 
therein provided that slavery should cease in 
Missouri in 1870, all slaves were to remain in a 
" condition of servitude " until 1876, those under 
twelve years of age until they were twenty-three, 
and those over forty for life. 

The Ordinance of Emancipation was passed 
Wednesday, July 1, 1863. On the following 
Sunday, July 5, Dr. Eliot at the Church of the 
Messiah preached a discourse on " Emancipation 
in Missouri," which was pubHshed in pamphlet 
form. On the title-page was printed the text: 
" The people which sat in darkness saw a great 
light." In this discourse Dr. EHot stated first 
his objections to the form of the ordinance 
in these words : " My own opinion is that this 
ordinance is five or seven years too slow, and 
that if the chattel right of slavery had ended 
now, instead of in 1870, and the remaining pro- 
visions had been modified accordingly, it would 
have been far better in every respect, and for 
the higher interests of all concerned. It would 
have been better as a war measure, by the entire 
and final separation of Missouri from Southern 
affiliation. It would have been better as a peace 
measure in the State, by taking away all possible 
ground for continued agitation." 



EMANCIPATION AS A WAR MEASURE 193 



The remainder of the discourse might almost 
be termed a psean of thanksgiving for what had 
been accomplished. Dr. Eliot continued as fur- 
ther qiloted : " This act of emancipation is the 
quickest and most radical that any community 
ever passed for themselves or hy their repre- 
sentatives. We must remember that emancipa- 
tion acts have generally been enforced by some 
extraneous or arbitrary power, and not by those 
whose interests were directly affected, and their 
property taken away. . . . There is no other 
instance on record, so far as my knowledge ex- 
tends, of so near an approach to voluntary aban- 
donment of the power, the social distinction and 
immunity from labor, which the system of 
domestic slavery undoubtedly confers. ... In 
the whole record of such social changes, Missouri 
now stands first and foremost. You may say that 
her offering on the altar of freedom has not 
been perfect, nor such as the un trammeled lovers 
of freedom might have desired. But taking 
human nature as it is, and looking to history for 
our interpretations of it, we say that this ordi- 
nance of prospective emancipation is the grandest 
proof ever given by any people of their, willing- 
ness to give up whatever may be required for 
their country's good. If the act should be cor- 
dially approved by the majority of the people 
. . . Missouri will have put to utter shame the 
halting loyalty of communities to which the war 



194 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



has been a harvest of wealth, while to her it 
has been the besom of destruction. 

" As a general rule great changes, to be well 
made, must be deliberately and slowly accom- 
plished. Let them be made in whatever way you 
will, incidental evils must arise. . . . The pre- 
sent evils of change will be cured by time. 

" From whatever point of view we regard the 
subject, the same glorious fact more and more 
reveals itself. The principle of freedom and of 
free labor has been asserted. It is not enough 
to say that Missouri will be a free State. To all 
intents and purposes she is such already, and 
only w^aits the passage of a few years to enjoy all 
the immunities and privileges of freedom. . . . 
We thank God that out of all our sufferings and 
losses this great good has been educed. The 
suffering ^nd loss will be forgotten, but the bless- 
ings of freedom will more and more abound. 
. . . Oh, how weary we are of the enmities and 
strife, the envy, maHce, and uncharitableness, the 
maledictions and recriminations, the sunderings 
of friendship and the severing of families, and 
the thousand unnatural ills that war has engen- 
dered. 

" All hail, this brightening hope of brother- 
hood and peace ! May God in his great mercy 
confirm it to us and to our children." 

Under date of " Boston, July 24," we find 
the following acknowledgment to Dr. Eliot from 



EMANCIPATION AS A WAR MEASURE 195 



Edward Everett : " I received this afternoon two 
copies of the discourse delivered by you on the 
5th of July. I do not know whether I am in- 
debted to you for their transmission, but as I 
certainly am for the pleasure with which I have 
read the discourse, I will not lose an hour in 
returning you my hearty thanks. I do not know 
when I have read anything with greater plea- 
sure. 

" I concur in all that you say of the character 
of the ordinance. It is evidently not so much a 
compromise as a mixture of opposite opinions. 
The private working of some of the provisions 
under the appeals which will be made to the 
courts, cannot be foreseen ; but I have myself no 
doubt that, like the apprenticeship system in the 
British colonies, this ordinance will, at the in- 
stance of the slaveholders themselves, long before 
1870, give way to another of immediate eman- 
cipation. But whether it does or not, Missouri is 
from this time forward substantially a free State, 
and will, I doubt not, enter upon that career of 
prosperity for which her magnificent position and 
unsurpassed resources so admirably fit her. 

" When I look back to the controversy which 
grew out of the attempted restriction on the ad- 
mission of Missouri into the Union in 1820, and 
on the folly which dictated the repeal of the Mis- 
souri Compromise in 1854, and then consider that 
the people of Missouri, assembled in convention 



196 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

in 1863, have decreed that after 1870 all slaves 
then in Missouri shall be free, I am awe-struck 
■with the visible tokens of an overruling and an 
interposing Providence. 

" That your noble State may reap a rich reward 
for all that she has done and suffered in the cause 
of the Union, is my sincere and earnest hope and 
trust. The future is, of course, veiled in dark- 
ness ; but when I consider your central position, 
and your means of communication in every direc- 
tion, nothing seems to me more probable than 
that, by the end of the century, St. Louis will be 
the metropolis of the Union." 

The greater portion of this letter was pubHshed 
at the time in a St. Louis paper, with the state- 
ment that it was written to a gentleman of that 
city. George Bancroft, the historian, was also 
quoted as having expressed the same opinion as 
Mr. Everett in a recent conversation. " Missouri, 
sir," said he, " is a free State. The defects of the 
ordinance are of no importance. . . . Slavery 
will disappear in half the time prescribed for it." 

The predictions and hopes of these gentlemen 
and of Dr. Eliot were realized far sooner than 
they expected. 

Although Dr. Eliot had consistently advocated 
a plan of gradual emancipation for slaves, he had 
always realized the attendant danger that they 
would be sold out of the State before their free- 
dom was secured. Such seems to have been the 



EMANCIPATION AS A WAR MEASURE 197 



effect of the measure just passed, as appears from 
a letter addressed to General Schofield by Dr. 
Eliot, under date of November 9, 1863. The 
letter is quoted in full, as it tells its own story. 

" I would respectfully represent that by the Ordinance of 
Emancipation passed by ' the People of Missouri in Con- 
vention assembled ' in July, 1863, the term of servitude of 
slaves held in the State at that time was limited to seven 
years, namely to July 4, 1870, with certain conditions of 
service for those under twelve or over forty years annexed. 
By this ordinance, therefore, freedom is guaranteed to all 
slaves, as above recited, and the legal right of masters is 
limited and restrained accordingly. 

" In contravention of this ordinance, many of the slave- 
owners in the State are continuing to exercise the full and 
unconditional right of ownership, by selling their slaves for 
life, and also by removing them, or causing them to be re- 
moved, from Missouri to the State of Kentucky or elsewhere, 
to be sold for life, and they are thus unjustly and fraudu- 
lently deprived of their legal and vested rights under said 
Ordinance of Emancipation. Instances of this kind are 
daily occurring, sometimes under circumstances of great 
hardship, in the separation of families and otherwise, and 
facilities for such action are given by military authorities 
in this Department. 

" I respectfully call your attention to these facts, and 
humbly petition that an order be issued restraining such 
facilities in the future, either by the giving of passes or in 
any other way, at least until the legal rights of masters and 
slaves as prescribed by this ordinance shall have been 
passed upon and determined by the proper judicial tribu- 
nals, and warning all slave-owners against transcending their 
legal rights in the premises, by selling their slaves for life, 
or by removing them from the State except when they shall 
have first given full and sufficient bonds for the protection 



198 



WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



of said slaves in all their rights as guaranteed by said ordi- 
nance." 

Inclosed in this letter was the draft of a sug- 
gested Order from Headquarters, revoking the is- 
suing of permits or passes for the removal of 
slaves from the State. A copy is appended. 

" Whereas, It has been represented at these Headquarters 
that the permits or passes given to slave-owners, or those 
claiming to be such, for the transportation of slaves out of 
the State, are greatly abused, in such a manner as to promote 
the traffic in slaves particularly by disloyal persons, with all 
the hardship incident to the separation of families, and 
to open a door for the kidnapping of free persons or those 
entitled to their freedom, of whom a large number have 
been thus taken and sold into slavery, and that there is no 
practicable way of preventing such abuse and wrong, so long 
as such permits or passes continue to be given. 

" And whereas, It is also represented that such permits 
or passes serve and are regarded as a military protection 
under which slaves are carried into and through free States, 
and virtually deprived of the claim to their freedom which 
would otherwise exist from the fact of their being carried 
into a free State by the voluntary act of the master, thus 
indirectly interfering with civil law in other Departments 
and discriminating against freedom and strengthening the 
bonds of slavery. 

" And whereas, by the Ordinance of Emancipation passed 
* by the People of Missouri in Convention assembled,' free- 
dom is guaranteed to all slaves who may be in the State in 
1870, and the removal from the State deprives them of the 
hope of such emancipation and defeats the humane intent 
of said ordinance, a result which ought not to be promoted 
even if not hindered by military interference, — it is there- 
fore ordered that from and after this date, no permits or 
passes shall be issued by any mihtary authority in this 



EMANCIPATION AS A WAR MEASURE 199 



Department for the removal of slaves from the State of 
Missouri into any other State or Department." 

On the outside of a copy of this letter is written : 
" In answer the whole system of passes to slave- 
owners with slaves was stopped November 10/' 
the day following the writing of the letter. 

Had the enlistment of "persons of African 
descent," so termed, in the armies of the United 
States been suggested at the beginning of the 
Civil War, there would have been emphatic pro- 
test from all sections of the country. Yet to this 
culmination the exigencies of war inexorably led, 
and each succeeding enactment of Congress affect- 
ing the status of the slave brought it nearer. 

In virtue of the authority conferred upon him 
by the Confiscation Act of July, 1862, the Presi- 
dent declared in his final Emancipation Procla- 
mation that " persons of suitable condition held as 
slaves in the States in rebellion will be received 
into the armed service of the United States to 
garrison forts, positions, stations and other places, 
etc." In the spring of 1863 active measures were 
inaugurated to organize colored regiments on a 
scale commensurate with the need for recruiting 
the army, and in the adjutant-general's of&ce of 
the War Department there was established a spe- 
cial bureau for the organization of colored troops. 
General Thomas was sent to the Southwest, where 
were great numbers of f reedmen along the banks 
of the Mississippi. Here the problem was a simple 



200 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



one ; but in the Border States, claiming to be par- 
tially loyal, the enlistment of blacks was opposed. 
In Missouri Governor Gamble gave his consent 
to the measure on condition that the laws of Mis- 
souri should not be violated ; but as the old slave 
laws still remained on the statute books, this con- 
dition negatived his consent. 

At this time a question arose regarding the 
enlistment of slaves of masters claiming to be 
loyal who asserted that their slaves absconded 
and enlisted without their consent. In reply to 
a letter of inquiry from John M. Forbes, a very 
prominent and patriotic citizen of Boston, who 
had been made chairman of a committee ap- 
pointed by Governor Andrew of Massachusetts 
to " aid in the enlistment of colored troops," Dr. 
EHot suggested a plan for satisfying the claims 
of loyal masters, which was later brought to the 
attention of the President, and by him adopted. 
Dr. Eliot thus wrote to Mr. Forbes : " My behef 
is that more than half of the slaves in Missouri 
are owned by rebel masters, or by the notoriously 
disloyal, and if there were any way to get at 
them you would be in no want of recruits. If 
your recruiting agents could be placed in differ- 
ent parts of the State, and authorized to receive 
all applicants whose masters are known to be 
rebels, it would probably serve the purpose. In 
this case provision should be made for enrolling 
the names of the masters, so that if they should 



EMANCIPATION AS A WAR MEASURE 201 

afterwards come forward and prove their loyalty, 
the sum allowed for recruits, say $300, could 
be paid to thera for each man improperly taken. 
If black substitutes were receivable, a great 
many of the masters, when drafted, would free 
their slaves to take their places." 

In reply there was received from Mr. Forbes 
under date of Boston, October 26, a letter in 
which he wrote in part : — 

"I believe I answered hastily your last note 
begging a conservative man for Ben Butler. . . . 
After a little I expect to see the President come 
up to the mark, as he has on other occasions 
after considerable urging. 

" In Maryland his general order about slaves 
is working well, and you see he has adopted 
your suggestion of giving the bounty to loyal 
masters. I sent it on to Stanton, and he said 
they then had it under consideration, and were 
waiting for something, perhaps for more decided 
evidence of pubHc sentiment. I only wish he had 
left out the master's consent. 

" We have raised $60,000 to help black re- 
cruiting." 

The general order of the President herein 
referred to was issued October 3, 1863, and 
regulated the enlistment of slaves in Maryland, 
Missouri, Tennessee, and Delaware, where re- 
cruiting stations were established. It embodied 
Dr. Eliot's suggestion that the names of all 



202 



WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



masters of slaves enlisted be enrolled, and those 
satisfactorily proving their loyalty receive as 
compensation a sum not over $300, upon filing 
deeds of manumission. 

In the " Life of Lincohi " by Nicolay and Hay, 
we find this statement regarding the order of 
the President referred to : " Loyal owners were 
compensated whether they had given their con- 
sent or not, upon filing deeds of manumission 
and release, and a board was appointed to audit 
such claims. This order gave satisfaction in 
many directions ; it helped to fill the army, gave 
slaves an avenue to freedom, aided and stimulated 
state emancipation, compensated slave-owners, 
and lightened the burden of the draft upon 
white citizens." This order with local regula- 
tions was issued by General Schofield m Mis- 
souri November 14, 1863, four days after the 
system of passes to slave-owners and their slaves 
was revoked. 

Only one thing was lacking to complete the 
full measure of tardy justice meted out to the 
colored soldier. By the Confiscation Act of 
July, 1862, ten dollars a month was allowed to 
" persons of African descent " employed by the 
government. With the advance in the status of 
the race this sum became insufiicient. The white 
soldier received thirteen dollars a month, and a 
bounty in addition. The colored soldier, for 
whom the risk was greater on account of that 



EMANCIPATION AS A WAK MEASURE 203 



very disadvantage of race which prevented him 
from receiving the full compensation, not only 
was paid a smaller monthly wage, but received 
no bounty. On the 16th of November, 1863, 
Dr. Eliot thus wrote to Edwin M. Stanton, the 
Secretary of War : — 

" Permit me as a citizen of Missouri to thank you for the 
order just issvied by General Schofield on the subject of 
recruiting among slaves. It is the right thing at the right 
time. A part of the Conservatives will find fault, but the 
majority, of whom I am one, will heartily concur. ... It 
is the death blow of slavery, for which thank God. 

" I write now to suggest, if you will permit me, that a 
bounty, say of $150, be paid to each colored recruit. As the 
disloyal masters will not be paid for their recruited slaves, 
and probably not over $300 will be awarded to many of 
the loyal masters, such a bounty paid to every slave recruit 
would still average far less than is paid to white men, and it 
would stimulate enlistments to great activity. More than 
half the slaves will prove to be of disloyal masters if the 
scrutiny is at all severe. 

" There seems to be no reason why those who are exposed 
to the same danger and do the same work should not be 
treated as nearly alike as the nature of the case admits. In 
the beginning I was opposed to the whole theory of arming 
the negroes, but no opinion can resist the logic of events ; 
and now that we have put our national cause partly in their 
hands, the least we can do is to treat them like men. It is 
not right to take them without bounty and at less wages, 
and then expect the same services. They feel this, and 
their readiness to enlist is diminished. So much depends 
upon quickness of action that all obstructions should be 
removed. 

" I have no right to make these suggestions except that of 
earnest patriotism. With no favors to ask, and no party to 



204 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



serve, I have labored from the first and when laborers were 
few, for the good cause." 

To this letter was written the following reply 
by Secretary Stanton : — 

" November 20, 1863. 
" I pray you to accept my thanks for your very interest- 
ing and patriotic note of the 16th inst. just received. Your 
views impress me very deeply, and will be laid before the 
President for his directions. I have received no communi- 
cation upon this important subject which has given me 
'fhore satisfaction than your letter." 

The policy advocated by Dr. Eliot, of placing- 
the white and colored soldiers on a more equal 
footing as to pay and bounty, was strongly ad- 
vised by the Secretary of War in his message 
issued April 2, 1864. It was also advocated by 
the President and authorities at Washington. 
Congress, however, took no action until by the 
Army Appropriation Bill passed in June, 1864, 
this tardy act of justice was consummated. By 
the same enactment the widows and children of 
colored soldiers dying in the service were enti- 
tled to pensions. After this action was taken the 
number of enlistments increased. 

From the beginning to the close of the Civil 
War, there were great differences of opinion 
among Missouri politicians. Gradually the Condi- 
tional Union men allied themselves unreservedly 
with the Union party, but in that party there 
were Radicals and Conservatives, or Claybanks 
and Charcoals, as they were termed in the famil- 



EMANCIPATION AS A WAR MEASURE 205 



iar parlance of the day. These Kadicals and 
Conservatives frequently disagreed as to the wis- 
dom or unwisdom of war measures, which several 
times resulted in a change of commanders in the 
Department of Missouri. 

In the fall of 1863, General Schofield gave 
dissatisfaction to leading politicians in Missouri, 
and the President, in the interest of harmony, de- 
cided that it was better to remove General Scho- 
field from command in Missouri, for the same 
reason that Schofield had superseded Curtis. 
This action did not involve lack of confidence on 
the part of the President, since Schofield was to 
be relieved of his command in Missouri through 
promotion in the army. At the President's re- 
quest the nomination of General Schofield to be 
major-general was sent to him for confirmation, 
and by him forwarded to the Senate with his 
approval. 

Dr. Eliot regretted the removal of General 
Schofield from Missouri, especially as some of 
the Radicals were asking for Butler, a man of 
drastic measures. As an expression of his judg- 
ment, and of his approval in general of Schofield's 
course in Missouri, and in order to exert his per- 
sonal influence towards his promotion to a major- 
generalship. Dr. Eliot drew up a memorial to the 
Senate, in which he endorsed that officer's man- 
agement of affairs in Missouri. We append a 
copy of this document : — 



206 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



To THE Honorable Senate of the United States, in 
Extra Session. 

The undersigned, a citizen of Missouri, and an Uncondi- 
tional Union man from the beginning, respectfully presents 
his petition : 

That Brigadier-General J. W. Schofield be confirmed in 
his nomination by the President of the United States, as 
Major-General of United States volunteers, for the follow- 
ing reasons : 

I. Because he is an honest, faithful, and loyal man, a 
good officer, and above reproach in personal character, his 
enemies themselves being the judges. 

II. Because, in his whole administration of affairs in the 
Department of the Missouri, he has strictly obeyed orders 
and followed instructions, of which we have full proof in 
the President's public statements, and therefore, if censure 
is conveyed, it should fall upon the instructions, and not on 
the officer who obeyed them, as in duty bound. 

III. In point of fact, his orders with reference to the 
treatment of disloyal persons, and on the subject of slavery, 
were the most stringent and radical that have ever been 
issued in Missouri, in proof of which reference is made to 
the assessment and extradition orders, and the order for 
depopulating the border counties between Kansas and Mis- 
souri, all of which orders were from time to time restrained 
or annulled at Washington ; and also to the order prohibit- 
ing the deportation of slaves from Missouri, by which an ini- 
quitous internal slave trade was effectually broken up ; and 
Order 135 for enlistment of slaves, by which the death blow 
was given to slavery in Missouri. These orders were issued 
under circumstances of great difficulty, and against the per- 
suasion and conviction of a large part of the people of Mis- 
souri, and are indication of anything rather than want of zeal. 

IV. Because he was always prompt and active in making 
provision for Union refugees, and for the freedmen from 
the South, and so far as he could for fugitives from slavery. 



EMANCIPATION AS A WAR MEASURE 207 

In such respects he assumed unusual responsibility, and his 
instructions to the officers in charge of these interests were 
to use their best discretion and to err, if at all, on the side 
of humanity. Your petitioner states this on his own know- 
ledge. 

Your petitioner humbly but earnestly believes that no 
good cause, not even the cause of freedom, can gain by acts 
of undue severity or personal injustice under whatever cir- 
cumstances : — and he has the honor to remain, in the cause 
of Justice, Loyalty, and Freedom, 

The Senate's obedient servant, 

William G. Eliot. 

Dr. Eliot's faith in Major-General Schofield 
was justified by Schofield's subsequent career. 
He later honored the office to which he was pro- 
moted by the Senate. 

Dr. Eliot held one position during the Civil 
War which afforded him much gratification and 
entailed little effort. In February, 1862, the 
older men of the city, exempt by reason of age 
from active service, organized in a body for de- 
fense of the city in an emergency. Dr. Eliot at 
once volunteered as chaplain, and was unani- 
mously chosen. In September, 1864, St. Louis 
was threatened by Sterling Price, who advanced 
within ten miles of the city. All of the enrolled 
militia in St. Louis were called into active ser- 
vice. The Old Guard then volunteered for duty, 
and were accepted. Happily Price was forced to 
retreat without entering the city. 

February 9, 1865, Dr. EKot preached an an- 
niversary sermon to the Old Guard, in which, 



208 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



after reviewing the events which had occurred 
during the three years of their existence, he con- 
gratulated them as Missourians on the changes 
which had been wrought in the status of the 
State in that time, and especially on its progress 
from slavery to freedom. He drew a graphic pic- 
ture of what had been, as contrasted with present 
conditions. " In the year 1861, sixty battles or 
considerable skirmishes were fought " on the soil 
of Missouri. " In the beginning of 1863 there 
were almost as many Missourians on the Con- 
federate muster rolls as on our own." Yet 
at that date, February, 1865, Missouri stood 
" credited at the War Department with no less 
than seventy-eight thousand enhsted men." Mis- 
souri had at first desired peace. Dr. Eliot said, 
but it would have meant that " wrong ought not 
to be resisted, and that rebels should be per- 
mitted to have their own way." " Law and right 
and liberty," he declared, " must be maintained, 
without which there can be no continued peace, 
and therefore as true lovers of peace we must be 
willing to fight for it." 

In concluding his address. Dr. Eliot advocated, 
as the means of securing the permanent restora- 
tion of peace, the laying aside of animosities en- 
gendered by war, and the diffusion of education 
to promote intelligent citizenship. 

After the beginning of the year 1863 Dr. 
Eliot ceased to keep a personal record of events ; 



EMANCIPATION AS A WAR MEASURE 209 



they pressed too closely upon him, and his phe- 
nomenal labors exhausted him. Mental suffering 
too, however bravely borne, is a heavy burden, 
and during this stormy period he was heavily 
afflicted in the loss of two of his children. 

May 3, 1864, his younger brother, Captain 
Frank Andrew Eliot, was killed at the battle of 
Chancellorsville. Captain Eliot had raised a com- 
pany of men in Germantown, Pennsylvania, where 
he resided, and pledged himself not only to com- 
mand, but to care for them. So strong was his 
feeling of personal responsibility towards them, 
so deep his attachment, that when he was offered 
promotion for gallant conduct after the battle 
of Fredericksburg, he refused the honor, and re- 
plied, " I entered the war for the cause alone. I 
am the captain and brother of these men, and as 
such I must fight to the end. We cannot part 
from one another save through death." Again a 
second time promotion was offered and refused. 

At the battle of Chancellorsville it became 
necessary to storm a barricade, behind which the 
rebels were strongly intrenched. For some reason 
Captain Eliot's superior officer failed to appear, 
and he assumed command. The men hesitated to 
expose themselves to what seemed certain death. 
Captain Eliot sprang forward alone upon the bar- 
ricade that separated him from the enemy. Wav- 
ing his sword, lie cried : " Follow me, boys ! " 
It was his last order, for he instantly fell, pierced 



210 



WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



by a bullet, but every one of his men followed 
him, many to share his fate. 

After the battle a Confederate soldier found 
him on the spot where he had fallen, and, driving 
four bayonets into the ground, threw over them 
a blanket as a shelter from the sun for the dying 
man. The Confederate received from Captain 
EHot his watch and other tokens for his wife, 
and they eventually reached her. His place of 
burial was never discovered, although every pos- 
sible means was taken to find it. Like many 
others who fell in battle, he filled a nameless 
grave. The memory of this brother was cherished 
by Dr. EHot with great affection, and after the 
war, through the gift of himself and Mrs. EHot, 
the Frank A. EHot scholarship fund at Washing- 
ton University was estabHshed as a memorial to 
the young soldier. 

Throughout the Civil War Dr. Eliot was a 
close observer of events, making his critical judg- 
ment felt at the proper moment to advance or 
retard what he considered wise or unwise action. 
His opinion, based on a clear understanding of 
concrete facts within the domain of his own per- 
sonal experience, was frequently accepted as final, 
through the confidence reposed in his wisdom. 
Always alert, always watchful, he entered the 
arena only when he believed he could be of as- 
sistance in the struggle. His unremitting labors 
were given to the humanities of war, the work 



EMANCIPATION AS A WAR MEASURE 211 



of the Western Sanitary Commission^ which ex- 
tended over a wide area of beneficence. A Hfe 
of WiUiam Greenleaf Ehot which did not include 
a history of this same Commission would be in- 
adequate and incomplete. 



CHAPTEK IX 



ORGANIZATION AND WORK OF THE WESTERN 
SANITARY COMMISSION 

Even as late as the middle of the last century it 
had become an accepted fact in the experience of 
armies, that many more men perish from disease 
than are slain in battle. During the Crimean War 
it was estimated that two months' longer continu- 
ance of the then prevailing death rate at Sebas- 
to]^ol would destroy the British army. No effort 
was made to devise a remedy for this evil, or im- 
prove the conditions of camp and army Hfe, until 
in the spring of 1855, in recognition of the neces- 
sity of the immediate adoption of sanitary mea- 
sures, there was sent to the Peninsula a govern- 
ment commission, which accomplished remarkable 
results in checking the spread of disease, while 
Florence Nightingale and her assistants nursed 
back to life the sick and suffering soldiers. 

At the outbreak of the Civil War in the United 
States, consideration on the part of philanthropic 
and patriotic citizens of the beneficial results ob- 
tained through the appointment of a government 
sanitary commission during the recent Crimean 
War in Europe, led to the formation in the United 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 213 



States of a civilian organization to look after the 
health of the soldiers in the army, and provide 
for the care of the sick and those wounded in 
battle. In addition to these duties primarily as- 
sumed, the Sanitary Commission became of ne- 
cessity the general distributing agency for the 
government of the large supplies of goods sent 
from every city, town, and hamlet of the North 
to the soldiers in the field. When the order of 
the Secretary of War creating the United States 
Sanitary Commission was issued June 13, 1861, 
it was declared to be appointed by the govern- 
ment as " a medium through which the benevo- 
lence of the people towards the army could be 
diverted into practical channels." 

To understand the necessity for the creation 
of the United States and Western Sanitary Com- 
missions, it must be remembered that at the out- 
break of the Civil War the government was wholly 
unprepared for the sanitary care of the large 
army suddenly called into being. " The opera- 
tions of the Medical Bureau previous to the Civil 
War," wrote Dr. Charles Stille in his " History of 
the United States Sanitary Commission," "were 
confined to an army of fifteen thousand men. 
Before the war there were no general hospitals ; 
the military hospitals were all post hospitals, that 
at Fort Leavenworth, the largest, containing but 
forty beds. It became necessary therefore to cre- 
ate, in the midst of the crisis, the entire system 



214 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



by which these estabhshments, so indispensable 
to the operations of a large army in the field, are 
governed. There were at that time no suitable 
buildings; no well-trained nurses; no require- 
ments or arrangements for a proper diet for the 
sick, or provision for their clothing ; no properly 
understood relations between general hospitals 
and regimental hospitals ; no means for supplying 
promptly proper medicines, and no arrangements 
for the humane and careful transportation of the 
sick and wounded. Patients were crowded in the 
beginning of the war into buildings wholly un- 
suited for their treatment. The agony and suf- 
fering which were endured by them during the 
first nine months of its continuance, owing to 
the delay in the construction of proper general 
hospitals, can never be accurately known, but it 
is not easy to estimate." 

Such was the lack of provision for our sick and 
wounded soldiers when the sanitary commissions 
were organized. Lacking the rigidity necessary 
to an army system, well managed, and ready to 
give immediate response when called upon, they 
were of invaluable assistance to the government 
in its provision for the health of the soldiers in 
the field, and for the care and comfort of the sick 
and wounded. 

Theoretically the United States Sanitary Com- 
mission was supposed to include the whole coun- 
try in the circle of its beneficence. The area was 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 215 



large, Missouri was a thousand miles distant from 
Washington, and the need of a general hospital 
system very great. When on August 18, 1861, 
a battle was fought near Springi&eld, Missouri, 
and after the lapse of eight or ten days the sick 
and wounded began to be brought in, nothing 
was ready for them. In a report of the work of 
the Western Sanitary Commission, Dr. Eliot thus 
told the tale : " The first hundred arrived at night. 
They had been brought in wagons one hundred 
and twenty miles, over a rough road, by hurried 
marches, suffering for food and water, from 
Springfield to Rolla, and thence by rail to St. 
Louis to the station on Fourteenth Street. There, 
having had nothing to eat for ten hours, they 
were put into furniture carts and carried the re- 
maining three miles. Bare walls, bare floors, and 
an empty kitchen received them, but the kind- 
hearted surgeon, Bailley, did all he could to make 
kindness take the place of good fare. He obtained 
from the neighbors cooked food for their supper, 
and lost no time in getting together the various 
means of comfort. The poor fellows were so shat- 
tered and travel-worn that they were thankful 
enough to get eatable food, with the hard boards 
to sleep upon, and no word of complaint did we 
ever hear one of them utter. In the course of the 
week three or four hundred more were brought 
in, the condition of things meanwhile rapidly 
improving ; but so great was the difficulty of ob- 



216 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



taining anything that was wanted, that many of 
the badly wounded men lay there in the same un- 
changed garments in which they had been brought 
from the battlefield three weeks before. Every 
day, however, made things better, and by the end 
of a month from the first arrivals, Dr. Bailley began 
to say that ' it was not yet what he called a good 
hospital, but that the men were all comfortable.' " 
At the beginning of the Civil War, such con- 
ditions were only too common east and west. 
What was St. Louis to do for her wounded and 
sick soldiers, sent to that city from all parts of 
the State ? Should she wait for the necessarily 
slow action of the government through its Medi- 
cal Bureau, or for the United States Sanitary 
Commission to send an agent to that distant point? 
At the suggestion of one of her citizens. Dr. Wil- 
liam G. Eliot, the Western Sanitary Commission 
was created, as he himself expressed it, " to meet 
the exigency of the moment." So well did it ful- 
fill this purpose that, six weeks after its organ- 
ization, four large general hospitals were estab- 
lished, with over two thousand beds, all occupied, 
and with all the essential comforts that sick men 
require. 

The plan for the organization of a sanitary 
commission for the Department of the West was a 
very simple one. On September 3, 1861, a docu- 
ment was drawn up by Dr. Eliot under the heading 
of" Suggestions," and this was submitted to Major- 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 217 



General Fremont. It was copied by Mrs. Fremont, 
and on September 5 was signed by the General. 
On September 10 it was issued as Special Order 
159, signed by " J. C. Kelton, Assistant Adjutant- 
General, by Order of Major-General J. C. Fre- 
mont." It created a civilian commission of five 
gentlemen, who were appointed to serve volunta- 
rily and be removable at pleasure. Its general 
object was, as stated, " to carry out under the pro- 
perly constituted military authorities, and in com- 
pliance with their orders, such sanitary regulations 
and reforms as the well-being of the soldiers 
demanded." 

" Under the direction of the Medical Director," 
the Western Sanitary Commission had authority 
to select and furnish buildings for hospitals, pro- 
vide nurses, inspect camps, and, in brief, to at- 
tend to everything that related to the health and 
comfort of the volunteer troops in and near St. 
Louis. The work of the Commission was, as an ac- 
tual fact, never confined to St. Louis, and Secre- 
tary Stanton extended its range of action to all 
the States west of the Alleghany Mountains. 

The four gentlemen designated by Dr. Eliot to 
act with himself on the Board of the Commis- 
sion, and who were thus appointed by General 
Fremont, were all citizens of high standing in the 
community. Mr. James E. Yeatman, a South- 
erner by birth, served as president of the West- 
ern Sanitary Commission throughout the Civil 



218 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



War^ giving all his time to the arduous labors 
required. A gentleman of the old school, he was 
liberal and progressive in his ideas, humane and 
kindly in his instincts, and devoted to every good 
cause. Mr. Carlos S. Greeley, the conscientious 
treasurer, was a successful merchant. He managed 
the funds of the Commission with great financial 
skill. Dr. J. B. Johnson, originally from New 
Bedford, Massachusetts, was a distinguished phy- 
sician and influential citizen. Mr. George Par- 
tridge, also a Massachusetts man, was a successful 
merchant. He was one of the earlier members of 
Dr. Eliot's church, an earnest philanthropist, and 
a liberal contributor to Washington University. 
These four gentlemen, with Dr. Eliot, worked to- 
gether during the Civil War with the most per- 
fect unanimity. 

Immediately upon the appointment and organ- 
ization of the Western Sanitary Commission, the 
members began their important work of fitting 
up general hospitals in St. Louis. To obtain 
necessary funds. Dr. Eliot wrote " An Appeal to 
the Public," which was signed by the members 
of the Board, and published September 16th. In 
this appeal it was stated that a part of the duty 
of the newly appointed Commission was to obtain 
" additional means of increasing the comfort and 
promoting the moral and social welfare of the 
men in camp and hospital," for which end money 
was an indispensable requisite, and contributions 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 219 



were solicited. " Government provides abun- 
dantly/' he declared, " for the well man, and in 
many respects for the sick. But change of cloth- 
ing, shirts, drawers, socks, handkerchiefs, slip- 
pers, and other comforts need to be bountifully 
suppKed. Many of the nicer articles of food, 
which the sick man craves, and by want of which 
his convalescence is retarded, come under the 
head of necessaries." This appeal met with a 
generous response from the citizens of St. Louis, 
and boxes of stores soon were forwarded to the 
Commission from all parts of the North. 

As each general hospital was fitted up ready 
for occupancy, application was made to the mili- 
tary authorities to send thereto sick soldiers from 
the camps. In accordance with Dr. Eliot's sug- 
gestion, arrangements were immediately made for 
proper burial of the soldiers who died in the 
hospitals. The graves were marked and a careful 
record kept of the name, regiment, and such other 
facts as would lead to identification. Separate 
provision was made for convalescents. When 
General Fremont requested that two thousand 
beds should be immediately prepared for the 
wounded in anticipation of a great battle, they 
were ready before required for use. At each meet- 
ing, and meetings then were frequent, one or two 
members of the Board were appointed to inspect 
hospitals in and near the city. Camps were visited, 
and when overcrowding and neglect of sanitary 



220 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



measures were reported the matter was brought 
to the attention of the proper military authorities. 
Mr. Yeatman found conditions very unsatisfac- 
tory in the hospitals at Jefferson City, through 
the incompetence of army surgeons ; and it was 
resolved at the next Board meeting that it was 
expedient and necessary for the Sanitary Com- 
mission to supply all regular hospitals with sheets, 
hospital garments, and stores." 

In reading the record of the proceedings of the 
Board of the Western Sanitary Commission, we 
are at once impressed with the practical efficiency 
of its members and the amount of work accom- 
plished with expedition and dispatch. Conscien- 
tious in the use of the funds intrusted to them, 
they employed little assistance. The president, 
Mr. Yeatman, gave his entire time to the work, 
having at first only one employee, who served 
as storekeeper, clerk, and porter. Whenever an 
emergency arose, and there was a sudden call for 
supplies, the members of the Commission worked 
until late at night, overseeing the packing of 
boxes. Dr. Eliot, who lived on what were then the 
outskirts of the city, frequently remained until 
midnight, walking home lantern in hand. At the 
close of the war statistics proved that the expenses 
of administration and service amounted to only 
one and one half per cent, of the value of the 
distributions of the Commission. 

Shortly after the inception of its work the 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 221 

Western Sanitary Commission at St. Louis re- 
ceived from the United States Sanitary Commis- 
sion at Washington a remonstrance against the 
existence of a separate organization in the West, 
and also notice that official protest had been made 
to the Secretary of War, and a request that he 
require General Fremont to rescind his order, so 
that the Western Sanitary Commission might be 
made a branch of the National Commission. At 
the request of the Western Commission Dr. Eliot 
immediately started for Washington, and had a 
personal interview with the Secretary of War, 
Simon Cameron, who had " no objection to the 
Western gentlemen being as independent as they 
pleased, as long as they were under the Medical 
Department." President Lincoln, to whom Dr. 
Eliot also appealed in person, was of the same 
opinion, and things were permitted to remain as 
they were. Dr. Eliot maintained in his argument 
at Washington that it would be unwise to sub- 
ordinate the Western Sanitary Commission to a 
distant central authority, especially in view of the 
social conditions prevailing at the time in St. 
Louis and throughout Missouri, and the great 
usefulness of the Western Sanitary Commission 
as then organized. ■ 

On his return from Washington, Dr. Eliot drew 
up a set of resolutions, which were unanimously 
adopted by the Western Sanitary Commission, 
and copies sent to the Secretary of War and the 



222 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



United States Sanitary Commission. In these and 
further official communications additional argu- 
ments were cited in favor of an independent or- 
ganization in the West. The condition of affairs 
in Missouri at that time was not thoroughly un- 
derstood in the East, even by the President and 
Cabinet. Many citizens, nominally loyal, were only 
conditionally so, and very many actively disloyal. 
A civilian commission, so Dr. Eliot claimed, main- 
taining confidential relations with the commander- 
in-chief, could act more quickly, wisely, and effec- 
tively as a small independent organization than 
as part of a large one. The necessary quickness 
of action in the latter case would have been im- 
possible. 

In the resolutions forwarded to the United 
States Sanitary Commission at Washingi^on, plans 
were suggested for the thorough co5peration of 
the United States and Western Sanitary Commis- 
sions, and later, two members of the former. Dr. 
Douglass and Dr. Warriner, were made associate 
members of the original Board of the latter organ- 
ization. Several other gentlemen were also thus 
added to the Commission. 

On November 2d General Fremont was re- 
moved from command of the Department of the 
West. One of his last official acts was the issu- 
ance of an order authorizing the Western Sani- 
tary Commission to fit up two hospital cars for 
the transportation of the sick and wounded. 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 223 

They were to be provided with berths and ar- 
rangements for cooking, and nurses were to be in 
attendance. General Fremont always responded 
when there was opportunity for humane action. 

General Fremont's successor continued in 
command only sixteen days, and was then super- 
seded by Major-General Halleck. To him a 
report was made of the work done and in pro- 
gress by the Western Sanitary Commission. In 
this report Dr. Eliot wrote : " As to the manner 
in which the Western Sanitary Commission has 
performed its duty, it is not for us to speak ; but 
we earnestly invite the attention of the general 
commanding to the present condition of the 
hospitals, that he may see the amount of work 
and the manner in which it has been done. We 
claim no other merit than that of intelligent and 
hearty cooperation with the Medical Bureau, un- 
der the order received from headquarters, but 
we confidently beHeve that the hospital system of 
St. Louis and its vicinity is already, at the end of 
two and one half months, by far the most perfect 
and best managed in the United States." 

At this time the Western Sanitary Commission 
had become so useful and indispensable that the 
result more than justified any technical irregu- 
larity in its creation, and Major-General Halleck 
freely accorded his approval and support of the 
organization as then existing. 

Under Medical Director Dr. DeCamp, the con- 



224 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



cert of action between the Medical Bureau and 
the Western Sanitary Commission had been 
most harmonious. In December, 1861, he was 
superseded; and his successor, attached to old 
methods, and jealous of what he imagined to 
be interference with the Medical Department, 
opposed the humane measures of the Western 
Sanitary Commission, and manifested antago- 
nism towards the general hospital system. It was 
a matter of public record that this gentleman's 
hospital management some two months before at 
Cincinnati had so aroused popular indignation 
that public meetings of protest were held. He 
did not succeed in breaking up the general 
hospitals in St. Louis, but many patients from 
the post and regimental hospitals were not 
brought to them until almost or quite "past 
recovery." A number of trenchant articles, mak- 
ing public the facts, were written by Dr. Eliot, 
and published as editorials. At Camp Benton, 
during the winter of 1861-62, were collected over 
twenty thousand newly enlisted men crowded into 
rough open barracks. The regimental hospitals 
were hardly better than the barracks, poorly 
ventilated and unevenly warmed. Dr. Eliot wrote 
that he had seen in these hospitals men who 
had been sick for weeks without any clothing 
but their common garments, with no sheets nor 
pillow cases, and in some instances without beds, 
while there were two hundred and fifty beds 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 225 



empty in the Fourth Street Hospital alone. Like 
conditions existed in the brigade hospital at 
Sedalia, of which a heartrending description was 
given, and in other post and regimental hospi- 
tals where troops were collected. The existence 
of these unfortunate conditions was ascribed 
to the ignorance of officers, the incompetence of 
the army surgeons, and the added negligence at 
the time of the Medical Director, who frequently 
refused the hospital stores that the Western Sani- 
tary Commission was anxious and willing to send. 
Finally complaint was made by the regimental 
surgeons that the medicines they needed were 
refused them. The matter was brought to the 
attention of Major- General Halleck by the Com- 
mission, and that officer issued an order on the 
Medical Department to increase its allowances. 
This order the Medical Director refused to obey. 
General Halleck then reported the facts to the 
authorities at Washington, and the medical sup- 
ply table for regiments in the field was increased. 

As might have been expected from such a 
sympathetic and broad-minded body of men as 
the members of the Western Sanitary Commis- 
sion, it was their principle of conduct from the 
beginning to treat the Union and Confederate 
sick and wounded with equal impartiality. 

As early as January 7, 1862, Dr. Eliot re- 
ported to the Commission that he had been to 
the Arsenal with warm clothing contributed by 



226 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



sympathizing friends for the Confederate prison- 
ers there. He found them " very much confined 
in their barracks, and considerable sickness 
among them." He "advised Dr. Getty to send 
all he could of them to the hospitals/' and " as- 
sured him that the Sanitary Commission would 
do all it could to relieve him of any blame for 
pursuing this course." He had also " ordered a 
number of stores to be sent from the stores of 
the Commission for the prisoners." 

Hearing that smallpox had broken out among 
the prisoners at McDowell's College, and there 
was much consequent suffering, Dr. Eliot sought 
permission from General Halleck to visit that 
place. General Halleck was unwilling to grant 
the privilege sought unless there were urgent 
reasons therefor, and Dr. Eliot did not urge his 
request. He was assured by General Halleck 
that there were no cases of smallpox, that the 
prisoners were well cared for, and that such as 
were sick and wished it could be removed to the 
general hospitals. 

In May, 1862, by order of Major-General 
Schofield, the military prisons were placed under 
the supervision of the Western Sanitary Com- 
mission, and Dr. Eliot and Mr. Yeatman acted 
as a committee on the Gratiot Street prison. 
Overcrowding and unsanitary conditions were 
reported, and strenuous efforts were made by the 
Commission to have the prisoners removed to a 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 227 



new building. Event ually^ by order of Major-Gen- 
eral Curtis, the crowded condition of the prison 
and hospital was remedied by transferring a num- 
ber of the prisoners to the large mihtary prison at 
Alton J Illinois. The Gratiot Street prison was then 
cleaned and whitewashed by order of the West- 
ern Sanitary Commission, and much improved. 

Dr. Pollak and Rev. Dr. Schuyler, associate 
members of the Commission, were appointed a 
committee to visit the Alton prison, and found 
that it answered all requirements of sanitation 
and comfort. It was large, airy, situated in a 
healthy location, and the buildings were isolated, 
with considerable ground around them. It was 
filled to only half its capacity. The food was 
good in quality and abundant in quantity, and 
the prisoners were well provided for in every re- 
spect. A Catholic priest acted as chaplain, and 
the Confederate dead were buried with exactly 
the same care as the Union soldiers. 

When funds were required by the Western San- 
itary Commission to fit up the first floating hos- 
pital, in an appeal issued November 13, 1862, it 
was stated that in event of a battle the wounded 
of both armies, " by special order," would be 
treated alike, and such became invariably the 
practice. When certain secessionist ladies desired 
to make a distinction, and asked the privilege of 
visiting the hospitals to take delicacies to Con- 
federate to the exclusion of Union soldiers, in 



228 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



accordance with this same principle their request 
was very properly refused. 

In February, 1862, occurred the battle of Fort 
Donelson, the most brilliant of the battles fought 
to secure control of the great rivers which gave 
access to the interior of Kentucky and Tennessee. 
For three nights the army under Grant lay ex- 
posed to a driving storm of snow and sleet, and 
renewed the struggle at daybreak. The country 
reaped the splendid reward of human endur- 
ance and courage, but the suffering entailed was 
fearful. The number of sick and wounded was 
very large, and the Western Sanitary Commission 
was notified that four hundred patients were on 
their way to St. Louis. An associate member of 
the Commission, Dr. PoUak, with physicians and 
nurses, at once left for Paducah, Kentucky. He 
was furnished with a steamboat by Dr. Simmons, 
the medical director there, and returned to St. 
Louis with one hundred and fifty-five patients on 
board. This experience gave rise to a most im- 
portant suggestion from Dr. Simmons, which was 
immediately acted upon by the Western Sanitary 
Commission. This was that several large steam- 
ers should be fitted up as floating hospitals, each 
having on board a chief surgeon with assistants 
and nurses. It was proposed that these steamers 
follow the course of the army along the Western 
rivers, always ready to receive the sick and 
wounded. 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 229 



When this report was received by the Western 
Sanitary Commission, Dr. Eliot was immediately 
requested by the Board to address a letter to 
Major-General Halleek, explaining the plan, and 
stating that the Commission would undertake all 
the labor of carrying it into execution. The gen- 
eral commanding expressed his unqualified ap- 
proval, and immediately issued an order to the 
chief quartermaster to purchase a steamer. The 
City of Louisiana was chartered, the government 
furnishing beds and commissary stores, and the 
Western Sanitary Commission completing the out- 
fit at a cost of three thousand dollars, besides 
supplying surgeons and nurses. After the battle 
of Pittsburg Landing this vessel conveyed 3389 
patients to Northern hospitals. Another of these 
floating hospitals was soon after fitted up in the 
same manner by the Commission. Thus satisfac- 
torily were arrangements made for the transpor- 
tation of the sick and wounded along the great 
watercourses for whose control both sides were 
contending. 

In December, 1861, the rebel general Sterling 
Price entered Missouri. On the approach of 
General Curtis's forces he retreated into Arkan- 
sas with his army, and there was fought the bat- 
tle of Pea Kidge on the 7th and 8th of March. 
It resulted in a Union victory, although the Con- 
federates outnumbered our forces three to one. 
The Union loss in killed and wounded was one 



230 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



thousand ; the rebel loss even larger. This bat- 
tle was of great strategic importance^ since it 
checked the last incursion in force into Missouri, 
although guerrilla warfare continued until nearly 
the close of the war. 

The battlefield of Pea Kidge was situated two 
hundred and fifty miles beyond EoUa, the ter- 
minus of the Southwest Branch of the Pacific 
Railroad. The roads were almost impassable, the 
country half civilized and stripped by foraging 
parties, and there were frequent murders by guer- 
rilla bands. It was impossible to bring the 
wounded to St. Louis, and a thousand were to be 
provided for among a people who lived in log 
houses, and had few of the necessaries of life. 
The court-house, and such other buildings as there 
were at Cassville and other small towns within a 
radius of twenty miles, housed the wounded. As 
the march to Pea Ridge had been made in winter, 
with insufficient transportation, the Medical De- 
partment was wretchedly provided — no stimu- 
lants, no hospital stores, no bedding, and a very 
limited supply of medicines for these wretched 
men. 

When news of this battle reached St. Louis, 
at the rooms of the Western Sanitary Commission, 
the members worked day and night packing san- 
itary stores. The first installment was forwarded 
the 11th of March, with an agent, Mr. Platten- 
berg, in charge, and a second supply immedi- 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 231 



ately followed. Although furnished by General 
Halleck with a note to all quartermasters direct- 
ing them to assist him in forwarding these stores 
with all possible dispatch, so great was the dif- 
ficulty of transportation that Mr. Plattenberg 
did not reach Cassville, where were four hun- 
dred Federal wounded, until the 25th. He 
found the men stretched on the floors, with a 
little straw under them, and with knapsacks or 
blankets for pillows. They lay in the clothes they 
had worn on the battlefield, soiled and stiff with 
blood. They were devoid of every comfort. The 
sanitary stores from the Western Commission 
were turned over to the brigade surgeon, and 
distributed to the different hospitals, where they 
were received with the greatest joy. 

Mr. Plattenberg then visited other so-called 
hospitals where were many rebel wounded, going 
from place to place to learn and supply the needs 
of the suffering. Additional stores were hurried 
forward, and soon all the Union and Confederate 
wounded were amply supplied. 

In the report of this journey, Mr. Plattenberg 
said : " I am fully convinced that no army (so 
far as provision for the wounded was concerned) 
was ever sent into the field in such destitute 
condition as ours, except the one it fought and 
conquered." And of Mr. Plattenberg General 
Curtis wrote : " He is the agent of a noble Com- 
mission, whose arrival just after the battle of 



232 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



Pea Eidge, with his abundant supplies of sanitary- 
stores and stimulants, seemed in the destitute 
condition of the hospitals like a providential in- 
terposition in our behalf." So efficient was Mr. 
Plattenberg that he was employed as an agent by 
the Commission, and continued with the Army of 
the Southwest from that time until the spring 
of 1863. 

On the 6th and 7th of April, 1862, occurred 
the battle of Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, be- 
tween the Union forces under General Grant 
and the Confederate forces under Generals 
Johnston and Beauregard. The loss to each of 
the two armies was almost exactly the same. 
In the Union army there were 7882 wounded, 
and in the Confederate 8112 ; many of the latter 
fell into our hands. 

As soon as the news of this battle reached 
St. Louis by telegraph. General Halleck addressed 
a note to the Western Sanitary Commission, re- 
questing their cooperation with the Medical and 
Quartermaster's departments in sending to Pitts- 
burg Landing steamers fitted up and furnished 
with medical and sanitary supplies, with surgeons, 
wound-dressers and nurses, to take charge of the 
wounded and return with them to St. Louis. 

The two hospital boats, the City of Louisiana 
and the D. A. January, previously fitted up by 
the Commission, were immediately dispatched to 
Pittsburg Landing. The steamer Empress was 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 233 

also made ready and started for the same point 
on the 10th with Mr. Yeatman, president of the 
Commission, in charge. She carried a complete 
duplicate outfit of medical and sanitary stores, 
and also an extra corps of surgeons and nurses, 
for the steamer Imperial, to which vessel they 
were transferred on arrival at Pittsburg Landing. 
The Empress alone returned with nine hundred 
wounded men to St. Louis. 

The arrival of so large a number of wounded 
necessitated additional hospital accommodation, 
which was immediately provided by the Western 
Sanitary Commission. 

On the 1st of May, 1862, there were fifteen 
military hospitals in and near St. Louis, afford- 
ing accommodation for six thousand patients. Up 
to that date the number of patients admitted had 
been nearly twenty thousand, of whom about 
seven per cent, had died. Four floating hospitals, 
regularly employed for the transportation of the 
sick and wounded, had been fitted up. They were 
capable of transporting two thousand sick and 
wounded men, and were provided with every re- 
quisite for hospital service. They saved hundreds 
of lives by furnishing prompt relief and speedy 
transportation to well-ordered hospitals. 

Frequent inspection of the hospitals in St. 
Louis and the Department of the Mississippi con- 
firmed the members of the Western Sanitary 
Commission in the belief that not sufficient space 



234 WILLIAM GEEENLEAF ELIOT 



and air was allowed to each patient, especially in 
severe cases. A letter setting forth the facts, and 
submitting actual measurements, was written by 
Dr. Eliot to Surgeon-General Hammond. It was 
signed by the remaining members of the Commis- 
sion and forwarded, and in hospitals afterwards 
established a " sufficient and specified number of 
cubic feet of air was allowed to each bed." 

In the spring of 1862 the Mississippi Naval 
Squadron was actively engaged on that river. 
On the 4th of May occurred a naval battle at 
Fort Pillow, which was later evacuated by the 
enemy. The Confederate steamer Eed Hover was 
captured by the Union forces, and Captain Wise 
of the gunboat flotilla proposed that it be fitted 
up by the Sanitary Commission as a floating hos- 
pital for the Mississippi Naval Squadron, towards 
which expense he would contribute. This was 
done at a cost of thirty-five hundred dollars to 
the Commission, and this hospital boat and the 
entire squadron were kept generously supphed 
with stores by them during the year. 

By a great naval victory on the 4th of J une, 
1862, Memphis was captured, and the Mississippi 
opened as far as Vicksburg. This extended the 
field of action of the Western Sanitary Commis- 
sion. For the sick and wounded of the naval 
squadron, general hospitals were immediately 
established at Memphis and Jackson^ Tennessee, 
and at Helena, Arkansas. 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 235 

The capture of Memphis was followed by the 
encampment of General Curtis and the Army of 
the Southwest at Helena, Arkansas. It was an 
important military point of great practical and 
strategic value, but the location among the bot- 
tom lands and cypress swamps of the Mississippi 
was malarial and unhealthy. The regimental hos- 
pitals and five churches were all filled with sick 
soldiers. Mr. Plattenberg, who had followed the 
army through Arkansas, over a route of eight 
hundred miles, opened a depot at Helena, from 
which he liberally distributed the large supplies 
of sanitary stores sent by the Western Sanitary 
Commission. 

In September, 1862, when General Schofield 
took command of the Army of the Frontier beyond 
Springfield, Missouri, he requested the Western 
Sanitary Commission to send large quantities of 
supplies to the army at that point, and also sug- 
gested that an agent be employed by the Com- 
mission, to be located with his army, in order to 
insure prompt distribution of goods to the post 
and regimental hospitals of the Southwest. Both 
of these requests were complied with, and Rev. 
Mr. Newell was immediately appointed as agent. 
His services were soon needed. In December, 
1862, at the battle of Prairie Grove, near Fayette- 
ville, in northern Arkansas, the rebels were de- 
feated, but the loss on both sides, in killed and 
wounded, was very large. Mr. Newell immedi- 



236 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



ately proceeded with two ambulances and a large 
quantity of stores to Fayetteville, and turned over 
everything he had to the surgeon in charge. Then 
he himself went to work to do anything and every- 
thing required. 

These continued drafts upon the resources of 
the Western Sanitary Commission left a depleted 
treasury, and it became necessary to raise more 
funds. It was decided that Dr. Ehot should visit 
several of the Eastern cities, give an account of 
the work done by the Commission, set forth its 
present needs, and solicit contributions in money 
or hospital suppKes. 

In December, 1862, he started for Boston, and 
on the 30th of that month issued an appeal 
or statement in which he said : " The demands 
at the West are at present very urgent and our 
treasury is very low. The armies of Missouri and 
Arkansas, numbering seventy-five thousand men, 
depend entirely upon us for all sanitary suppHes. 
They are engaged in hard service, and are sub- 
ject to great exposure, so that large supplies are 
needed for their use. In the hospitals of St. Louis 
district there are five thousand beds, with the 
prospect of increase rather than diminution. . . . 
The gunboat fleet on the Mississippi now num- 
bers thirty-jive boats, to each of which hospital 
stores are supplied ; as likewise to the large float- 
ing hospital the Red Rover, and the naval hospi- 
tal at Cairo. . . . The floating hospital D. A. 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 237 



January is still continued in active service. . . . 
The armies of Tennessee and Mississippi are also 
partially provided for as to the wants of their sick 
and wounded. . . . The demand on us is greater 
than it ever was before. We have agents with each 
of the three great armies, and they all need liberal 
supplies, besides the constant home demand." 

In two of the Boston churches Dr. EHot made 
an appeal on behalf of the Commission, and as an 
immediate result received two thousand dollars, 
which he immediately forwarded to St. Louis. He 
also delivered in the same city an address em- 
hodjmg a statement of the financial condition, 
recent distributions, and probable wants of the 
Western Sanitary Commission. On his return 
Dr. Eliot stated, at a meeting of the Commission, 
that in Boston an organization to collect funds 
had been formed, consisting of Messrs. James 
M. Barnard, J. M. Forbes, R. C. Greenleaf, and 
others, and that probably they would succeed 
in raising ten or fifteen thousand dollars. The 
results were even better than he anticipated, as 
within the next few months these gentlemen 
secured, " for sanitary purposes in the Western 
armies," subscriptions which, with other sums 
forwarded, amounted to over fifty thousand dol- 
lars. In the list of donors appear many well- 
known names. Dr. Eliot had said : " Let the rich 
give of their abundance. Let the poor spare all 
they can." This injunction was certainly obeyed. 



238 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



The subscriptions ranged from one dollar to one 
thousand. 

Aside from this subscription list there were 
many separate contributions from this section 
of the country. Private letters tell of donations 
sent directly to St. Louis. The Boston Stock 
Exchange, in reply to a note from Dr. Eliot, for- 
warded a thousand dollars. The venerable Dr. 
Walker, ex-president of Harvard University, sent 
fifty dollars. Some little girls in Newton Corner, 
Massachusetts, held a fair and brought the pro- 
ceeds to Mrs. Thomas Lamb, Dr. Eliot's sister, 
to purchase mosquito netting and cologne for the 
Western soldiers. Sixteen small boys from a school 
at Jamaica Plain sent various sanitary stores, and 
in forwarding a list of their names and contribu- 
tions wrote at the bottom of the sheet : " Please, 
Dr. Eliot, write us a letter." Sixty-eight pairs of 
knit socks for the soldiers came from the good 
women of Plymouth, Massachusetts. 

Mrs. Lamb, Dr. Eliot's sister, who lived in 
Boston, had in the beginning of the war " set 
apart a room in her house as the Missouri Eoom, 
and letting all her friends know of this convenient 
method of sending goods to St. Louis as fast as 
boxes could be filled, she received and forwarded 
goods to the value of seventeen thousand dollars, 
and in cash nearly as much more." Through her 
came many personal contributions. 

Dr. Eliot went to New York, and there saw 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 239 



Mr. James Roosevelt and other generous and 
patriotic citizens. Mr. Roosevelt, a year previ- 
ously, had opened a dollar subscription for the 
floating hospitals. 

In accordance with the advice of Colonel Wood, 
Assistant Surgeon-General and Medical Director 
of the Western forces. Dr. Eliot included Wash- 
ington in his tour, to ask from the Secretary of 
War, Edwin M. Stanton, recognition of the West- 
ern Sanitary Commission. On his arrival in that 
city he called on General Halleck, and explained 
to him the object of his visit, and then, in com- 
pany with the General, visited the Secretary of 
War, to whom the situation and wishes of the 
Commission were made known. Secretary Stanton 
expressed his entire approval of the separate or- 
ganization of the Western Sanitary Commission, 
which, in a special order, he renewed and con- 
firmed. We append a copy of the document : — 

ORDER OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR. 

War Department, Adjt.-Gbneral's Office, 
Washington, D. C, December 16, 1862. 
Special Order No. 397. 

Special Order 159, from the Headquarters of the Western 
Department (St. Louis, September 10, 1861), by authority 
of Major-General Fremont, establishing a Sanitary Commis- 
sion (Western), is hereby approved, and continued, with the 
privilege to said Commission of extending its labors in the 
camps and hospitals of any of the Western armies, under 
the direction of Assistant Surgeon-General, Colonel R. G. 
Wood, or the senior medical officer of the Medical Depart- 
ment. 



240 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



The Commission will consist of the original members ap- 
pointed, — Jas. E. Yeatman, C. S. Greeley, J. B. Johnson, 
George Partridge, and W. G. Eliot. 

By order of 

E. M. Staistton, 
Secretary of War. 

Late in January of this year, Mr. Yeatman, in 
response to the request of the Boston committee, 
went to that city, and completed in New England, 
on a more extensive tour, the work of sohciting 
funds for the Western Sanitary Commission, 
which Dr. Eliot had begun. To Dr. Eliot he wrote 
from Boston : " The kind reception which I have 
met with has been overwhelming, for which I 
have to thank you. I find to know or to be a 
friend of Dr. Eliot is the best of passports, both 
to the hearts as well as pockets of the good peo- 
ple of Boston. . . . All say that when we need 
more they will freely give. Several stated they 
were willing then to double their subscriptions 
if I said so ; but as these were large givers, I 
thought it best to defer having them do so until 
another general appeal should be made." 

This response from New England to the ap- 
peal of the Western Sanitary Commission proves 
how superficial are sectional differences, and how 
strong the bond of a common nationality. The 
ideal of perfect union knows no north, no south, 
no east nor west, but one people of a great Re- 
public. 



CHAPTER X 



WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION (continued) 

At the close of the year 1862, the almost im- 
pregnable stronghold of Vicksburg and Port 
Hudson below, alone obstructed the free passage 
of the Mississippi, and gave the rebels means 
of communication with the southwestern States. 
Against this objective point Grant had planned 
concerted action between himself and Sherman. 
The capture of Holly Springs, cutting off Grant's 
communications and supplies, prevented his co- 
operation, and the task essayed by Sherman 
alone was impossible of attainment, as proved by 
the issue of the event. Encamped on low and 
swampy ground, his forces in vain attempted to 
scale the fortified bluffs north of Vicksburg, 
impregnable by reason of their natural advan- 
tages of position and their artificial defenses. 
After several days of siege, and the loss of nearly 
two thousand men killed and wounded, Sherman 
recognized the fruitlessness of his undertaking, 
which was abandoned. Immediately afterwards, 
at his suggestion, Arkansas Post was attacked 
and taken by the Union forces. These engage- 
ments occurred in the midst of a very severe 



242 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

winter, which greatly added to the suffering of 
the sick and wounded, for whose transportation 
to St. Louis and Memphis additional hospital 
steamers were fitted up by the Western Sanitary 
Commission, and increased hospital accommoda- 
tion provided in each of the two cities for the 
large influx of patients. From the camps of 
Tennessee and Arkansas there were also sent to 
St. Louis large numbers of soldiers, whose ill- 
ness was largely the result of the severe winter 
weather. 

The siege of Vicksburg was later continued 
under Grant. During February and March the 
army were encamped in the half-submerged lands 
of the Mississippi, attempting titanic feats of 
engineering among tortuous bayous and streams. 
Eains were incessant, the camps were flooded, 
and for a time there was much sickness. Mr. 
Yeatman, the faithful and indefatigable presi- 
dent of the Commission, went down the Missis- 
sippi on the 1st of March to make a personal 
inspection and ascertain the needs of Grant's 
army. He found the health of the troops im- 
proving. Symptoms of scurvy were appearing 
as a result of the lack of vegetable diet, and the 
Commission sent large supplies. Mr. Platten- 
berg, their agent, also joined General Grant's 
army, and estabhshed his headquarters near 
Vicksburg. 

Mr. Yeatman was much impressed with the 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 243 



interest taken by Grant and Sherman in the 
health and well-being of their troops. General 
Grant was " determined to have provision made 
for the sick equal to any contingency that might 
arise/' and General Sherman " went through the 
camp on foot, giving particular directions in re- 
gard to sanitary regulations/' and " ascertaining 
personally the wants of the soldiers." 

After a gradual process of elimination, Grant 
had learned what was impracticable and what 
was possible in the capture of Vicksburg, and, 
taking a splendid initiative, crossed the Missis- 
sippi below Vicksburg, and attacked it in the 
rear. This movement, as is well known, resulted 
eventually in the capture of Vicksburg, yet not 
without great loss of life. In two unsuccessful 
attempts, on the 19th and 22 d of May, to 
storm the rebel works, forty-five hundred of our 
soldiers were wounded. There was an imme- 
diate and unusual demand for medical and sani- 
tary stores, and the supply became temporarily 
exhausted. An incident occurring at this time, 
as related by the surgeon of an IlHnois regi- 
ment, illustrates the advantages during a time of 
war of an added organization like the Western 
Sanitary Commission, unrestricted by necessarily 
rigid military rules. Surgeon Rex thus wrote to 
the secretary of the Commission : " I vividly re- 
member the last twenty-second day of May, after 
the charge upon the fortifications of Vicksburg. 



244 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

Our division (General Carr's) had about four 
hundred badly wounded men brought into the 
division hospital on that day. We had been cut 
off from our base of supplies for over two weeks, 
had fought three successful battles, and had en- 
tirely exhausted all our medical and hospital 
stores. Our men were brought from the battle- 
field with their winter clothing on, and in many 
cases their clothing and woolen blankets were 
saturated with blood and covered with fly-blows, 
and we had no change to give them. We heard 
that communication was opened with Chickasaw 
Landing, twelve miles distant, and that a United 
States government boat was there with supplies. 
At once four wagons were sent thither, with a 
request from the officer to send us the suppHes 
that were so urgently needed, and the neces- 
sary papers could be executed afterwards. The 
wagons returned empty, and the men were told 
that nothing would be issued, unless the papers 
had gone through all the proper channels, and 
were tied with red tape, which would require 
several days to accomplish. 

" One of the teamsters remarked to me that 
he saw the boat of the Western Sanitary Com- 
mission coming up the Yazoo River as they were 
leaving. Our wagons were sent back, and our 
situation made known to that noble-hearted gen- 
tleman, Mr. A. W. Plattenberg, agent of the 
Sanitary (Western) Commission, who at once 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 245 



loaded them with everything necessary for the 
comfort and health of our wounded soldiers, and 
in a few hours a great change was seen in the 
hospital. 

" The clothing was all changed, good beds 
were provided, nutritious food and proper stimu- 
lants prepared ; and, but for this timely aid from 
your Commission, it is probable many of these 
poor soldiers would have died. This is only one 
instance. I could cite many others of a similar 
character if time would permit." 

On the 26th of May Mr. Yeatman went to 
Vicksburg, accompanied by a corps of surgeons 
and nurses, and in charge of a steamer loaded 
with sanitary supplies to the amount of two hun- 
dred and fifty tons, besides cots and mattresses 
for a thousand men. When he reached his des- 
tination, he found the sanitary stores there en- 
tirely exhausted, so great had been the demand. 
During the following month of June 114,697 
articles were sent to Grant's army from the West- 
ern Sanitary Commission. 

On the 4th of July, 1863, the Union army 
entered Vicksburg. As a result of the fall of 
this great stronghold, five days later, on the 9th, 
Port Hudson surrendered to General Banks, and 
an unobstructed Mississippi lay open to commerce 
on its rightful pathway to the Gulf. 

On the west of the great river Arkansas and 
Texas were still claimed by the Confederacy. To 



246 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



secure possession of these two States General 
Steele was operating in the former and General 
Banks in the latter, and both of these generals 
depended upon the Western Sanitary Commission 
for sanitary and medical supplies for their sick 
and wounded. Under date of August 21, 1863, 
Dr. Eliot wrote to friends in Boston : " We have 
the whole army west of the Mississippi to see to, 
and a large part of General Grant's and the gun- 
boats, and the summer sickness is daily becom- 
ing worse. At Helena, where such grand fight- 
ing was done on the 4th of July, there are two 
thousand sick left by armies moving forward. 
General Steele writes that he never needed our 
services more than now ; and from every direc- 
tion the claims come in upon us. We are making 
very large shipments daily, and are this week 
under the necessity of taking a large additional 
storeroom for our bulky stores." 

Great was the difficulty of transportation 
through a region devoid of railroad facilities. 
In the record book of the Western Sanitary 
Commission, under date of October 16, 1863, 
appears the following entry : " Mr. Waterman, 
employed as agent in July, went with a large 
supply of sanitary stores to the army of Briga- 
dier-General Davidson (then at Bloomfield, Mis- 
souri) by way of Cape Girardeau. (This was in 
August.) Finding difficulty of transportation, he 
took one half of his supplies in wagons. On the 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 247 



way the train was attacked by guerrillas, and 
nearly all destroyed, and twelve soldiers and 
teamsters killed. Four of the wagons containing 
sanitary stores were burned, but two escaped 
destruction. Mr. Waterman was a few miles in 
the rear, but came up after the guerrillas left 
and extinguished the fire, and saved the two 
wagons with their contents. With these he went 
to Bloomfield and distributed goods to the sick 
left there by General Davidson, who had gone 
to Little Rock with the army (under General 
Steele)." Mr. Waterman returned to Cape Girar- 
deau and went to Helena with the remainder of 
his goods; thence to Clarendon and DuvalFs 
Bluff, where he was taken dangerously sick, and 
turned over his goods to the surgeon in charge 
and returned home. 

Another agent, Mr. Wyeth, was appointed by 
the Western Sanitary Commission. He followed 
General Steele's army, with sanitary stores. 
Little Rock was soon taken and became the 
headquarters of the Army of Arkansas. The sick 
were removed and provided for there, and in 
that city Mr. Wyeth immediately established his 
agency, receiving and distributing regular ship- 
ments of supplies from St. Louis. The medical 
director at Little Rock wrote to Mr. Yeatman, 
under date of September 30, 1863 : " Your 
Commission is doing an inconceivable amount 
of good for our sick soldiers." 



248 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



In the summer and autumn of this year, 1863, 
large shipments of goods were sent to the 
colored regiments. Mr. Yeatman wrote, in answer 
to inquiry : " We care for the sick and wounded 
colored soldiers just as we do for the white. 
We have supplied a number of regiments. . . . 
The accounts we have of them entitle them to 
our confidence." During the winter of this same 
year a very large shipment of sanitary goods was 
also sent to the army of General Banks on the 
Red River. 

The field of operations of the Western Sani- 
tary Commission was extended eastward soon 
after the fall of Vicksburg. Agencies were es- 
tablished at various points, such as Nashville and 
later Chattanooga, for the relief of the Division 
of the Mississippi. To General Sherman's army, 
during the whole of the year 1864, very large 
quantities of stores were sent, " all that could be 
shipped." From May 1 to November 1, 1864, 
nearly half a million articles, amounting in the 
aggregate to hundreds of tons, were sent to this 
army. In a letter of General Sherman to the pre- 
sident of the Commission, appeared the follow- 
ing acknowledgment of the good accomplished 
through their efforts : " I acknowledge fully 
that your Commission has done a world of good, 
and has enacted charity in that quiet and unos- 
tentatious manner that must command the love 
of all." 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 249 

In the early fall of 1864, the Western Sani- 
tary Commission was very desirous of sending 
forward a large supply of sanitary articles to the 
Union prisoners at Andersonville. It was hoped 
that this might be done either with the consent 
of the Confederate authorities or by the capture 
of the place. The president of the Commission 
was instructed to write to General Sherman in 
regard to the shipment of the stores, and also to 
offer him on behalf of the Commission five or 
ten thousand dollars to be expended at his dis- 
cretion for the benefit of the thousands of Union 
soldiers confined within the stockade as prison- 
ers of war, and suffering extreme privation. In 
reply to Mr. Yeatman, General Sherman thus ex- 
pressed himself : " The condition of the prison- 
ers at Andersonville has always been present to 
my mind, and could I have released them, I 
would have felt more real satisfaction than to 
have won another battle. ... I have frequent 
messages from them, and have sent word to the 
men to be of good cheer, that the day of their 
deliverance is approaching ; but I now think that 
Jefferson Davis is removing them. ... I shall 
have occasion to write to General Hood, and 
will offer to send down some fifty or sixty tons 
of clothing and other necessaries, but I doubt if 
he will consent. Should he assent, however, I 
will telegraph you to send me such articles as we 
do not have." 



250 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



Mr. Yeatman later received a telegram from 
General Sherman, requesting that the articles be 
sent forward. This was done, and they were 
packed in boxes marked " Major-General Sher- 
man, For the Andersonville prisoners." They 
reached the front, but it was impossible for Gen- 
eral Sherman to carry out his kind intentions, 
and the boxes were reshipped to the Commis- 
sion. In the spring of 1865 the Andersonville 
prisoners were released, and reached Vicksburg 
on their way to the North to be discharged. The 
Western Sanitary Commission immediately for- 
warded to that place the boxes of suppHes with 
the original marks upon them. When the men 
saw the boxes marked as we have described, 
they were much moved, and expressed pleasure 
that their general, " Old Billy," had not forgot- 
ten them. When these facts were communicated 
to General Sherman in a letter from Mr. Yeat- 
man, the General sent a noble reply, from which 
extracts are given. He wrote : " I do not think 
I ever set my heart so strongly on any one thing 
as I did in attempting to rescue those prisoners, 
and I had almost feared that instead of doing 
them good I had actually done harm, for they 
were changed from place to place to avoid me, 
and I could not with infantry overtake rail- 
roads. 

" I confess without shame that I am tired and 
sick of the war. Its glory is all moonshine. 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 251 

Even success, the most brilliant, is over dead and 
mangled bodies, the anguish and lamentations 
of distant families, appealing to me for missing 
sons, husbands, and fathers. . . . 

" It is only those who have not heard a 
shot, nor heard the shrieks and groans of the 
wounded and lacerated (friend or foe), that cry 
aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more deso- 
lation." This is truly a vivid picture of the re- 
verse side of war. 

The National Cemetery at Andersonville, 
where are buried thousands of the Union dead, 
tells more eloquently than words the sad story 
of suffering, starvation, and death within the 
Confederate stockade. It is a gruesome tale, the 
record of terrible mental and bodily suffering, 
and of breaking hearts in many a home in the 
North. Would that in the South there had been 
a sanitary commission to assert the claims of 
humanity ! 

Quite early in the Civil War there became 
manifest the need of homes for discharged and 
furloughed soldiers returning to their families. 
A soldiers' home was established in St. Louis 
by the Western Sanitary Commission in March, 
1862. During the first year of its existence over 
twelve thousand soldiers were entertained there 
with food and lodging, and during the second 
year over eight thousand, making a total of 
nearly twenty-one thousand men. The majority 



252 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



were invalids partially restored to health, and 
many of them required assistance in securing 
their pay and bounty, so that a committee was 
early appointed by the Commission for that pur- 
pose. Others who had money needed protec- 
tion from the sharpers that infest every large 
city. In no department of their work was a 
greater amount of good accomplished at less ex- 
pense by the Western Sanitary Commission than 
in the soldiers' homes. Eations and fuel were 
supphed to enlisted men by the government, the 
Commission fitting up the homes and supplying 
stores which were largely donated. 

Soldiers' homes were established in 1863, at 
Memphis, Tennessee, and Columbus, Kentucky, 
and later at Yicksburg, Mississippi, and Helena 
and Duvall's Bluff in Arkansas, at all of which 
places troops were concentrated. Up to Decem- 
ber 31, 1865, 421,216 enlisted soldiers had been 
entertained at these six homes, including the one 
at St. Louis. At that period all of the homes 
had been closed save the last mentioned, which 
was still entertaining a monthly average of two 
thousand guests. Confederate soldiers, as statis- 
tics show, were not excluded, and it was a fre- 
quent sight to see colored and white Union soldiers 
and the Confederate eating at the same table. 

The work of the Western Sanitary Commis- 
sion was never confined to the army, or to the 
individual soldier, but included every form of 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 263 



suffering and need incident to the Civil War. In 
the Border States, and especially Missouri, seces- 
sionists were strong and aggressive, murder was 
not infrequent, and the Union refugees were of- 
ten obHged to flee for their lives. During the 
fall and winter of 1861-62 many of these refu- 
gees from the interior and southwestern parts of 
Missouri were driven from their homes by the 
rebels, and reached St. Louis in a very destitute 
condition. The Western Sanitary Commission 
immediately responded to the need. A refugee 
home on Elm Street was opened for the most 
helpless refugees, and assistance given to others. 
Mr. John Cavender, an old and respected citi- 
zen, and one of the early members of Dr. Eliot's 
church, devoted his entire time to the care of 
these unfortunate people. The Commission is- 
sued an appeal, and as a result $3800 in money 
was contributed by loyal citizens of St. Louis, 
and about the same amount in clothing. As this 
was not sufficient for the relief of the large num- 
bers of persons constantly arriving in St. Louis 
and requiring aid, on the 4th of December, 1861, 
General Halleck issued his celebrated Order Num- 
ber 13. This was a drastic measure, but its stern 
justice was authorized by an exigency of war. 

The following extracts from this Order give 
an accurate idea of the condition of Missouri at 
this time : " . . . The rebel forces in the south- 
western counties of this State have robbed and 



254 



WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



plundered the peaceful non-combatant inhabit- 
ants, taking from them their clothing and means 
of subsistence. Men, women, and children have 
alike been stripped and plundered. Thousands 
of such persons are finding their way to this 
city, barefooted, half-clad, and in a destitute, 
starving condition. Humanity and justice require 
that these sufferings should be relieved. . . . 
There are in our city, and in other places within 
our lines, numerous wealthy secessionists who 
render aid, assistance, and encouragement to those 
who commit these outrages. They do not them- 
selves rob and plunder, but they abet and coun- 
tenance these acts in others. ... It is therefore 
ordered and directed that the Provost Marshals 
immediately inquire into the condition of the per- 
sons so driven from their homes, and that mea- 
sures be taken to quarter them in the houses, and 
feed and clothe them at the expense of avowed 
secessionists and of those who are found guilty 
of giving aid, assistance, and encouragement to 
the enemy." 

There is no evidence that any refugees were 
actually " quartered " in secessionists' homes. A 
statement was published that the execution of 
this part of the order had been turned over to 
the Western Sanitary Commission, and this called 
forth a rejoinder from Dr. Eliot, who wrote : 
" The care of the refugees from southwest Mis- 
souri has been intrusted to this Committee, and 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 255 



we have no doubt will be faithfully and kindly 
exercised. But as to confiscations and the like, 
the ' Board of Assessors ' and the Provost Mar- 
shal will be, as we suppose, the sole and sufficient 
actors, nor have we yet heard of any houses or 
other property as having been taken for the 
refugees or any other uses." 

On December 12, 1861, General Order Num- 
ber 24 was issued by General Halleck. This au- 
thorized, for the benefit of the refugees, the levy- 
ing on men " known to be hostile to the Union " 
of a contribution of f 10,000 in clothing, provi- 
sions, and quarters, or money in lieu thereof. By 
this assessment the sum of $15,000 was raised 
and turned over to the Western Sanitary Com- 
mission for the benefit of the refugees. For two 
years Mr. Cavender, with the advice and counsel 
of the members of the Commission, continued, 
for these unfortunate people, a work which was 
terminated only by his illness and death in the 
winter of 1863. From that period until Septem- 
ber of the same year, there seemed to be little 
need for further aid. 

In August, 1863, there began another move- 
ment of refugees towards St. Louis. They came 
from a larger area than before, from Arkansas, 
Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and 
Texas. They were brought up the river on gov- 
ernment steamers. The majority were women, 
with poorly clad, puny little children. Their 



256 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



husbands had been killed in the war, murdered 
by guerrillas, or conscripted into the rebel army, 
which was largely recruited from the " poor white 
trash " of the South. Others, lying out in the 
woods to avoid conscription, had died from the 
effects of exposure. The following typical account 
of the persecution to which Union families were 
exposed in certain sections of the country is re- 
lated as one instance among thousands of paral- 
lel cases, by the secretary of the Western Sani- 
tary Commission. A mother with four little 
children arrived at the refugee home from Ar- 
kansas on her way to friends in Kentucky. Her 
husband had been a prosperous farmer, owning 
a well-stocked farm. As he was known to be a 
Union man, he was often forced to he out in the 
woods for weeks at a time to escape being con- 
scripted into the rebel army or murdered. From 
time to time the guerrillas came to his house, 
seizing horses, cattle, corn, and even bed clothing 
from the beds, and the family apparel. At last 
they caught him while on a visit to his family, 
called him out into his dooryard, told him he 
was a— — traitor to the South, tore him away 
with violent hands from his weeping wife and 
children, led him a short distance down the road, 
and shot him. 

They then returned and told the widow she 
must go to Pilot Knob, or they would burn her 
house over her head. She yoked up the last ox 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 257 



team, put her bedding and children in the wagon, 
and started for Pilot Knob, a distance of two 
hundred miles, traveling at the rate of fifteen 
miles a day. When she had been nearly a week 
on the road, and her stock of provisions was 
almost exhausted, she met a party of guerrillas. 
Kegardless of her entreaties, they unhitched the 
yoke of steers from the old wagon, took her 
clothing and provisions, and left her in the road 
with her little children crying around her. The 
poor woman and her children reached Pilot Knob, 
footsore and weary. From there they were sent 
to St. Louis by rail, and were kindly received at 
the refugee home, and sent to friends in Ken- 
tucky, where the mother and children found a 
welcome in her father's home. 

As there had been no place for these poor 
refugee women and children to go when this 
second movement began, another refugee home 
was immediately opened by the Western Sanitary 
Commission at 39 Walnut Street. This was main- 
tained for a year, from September, 1863, to Sep- 
tember, 1864, and during this period received 
and provided for 2164 refugees. A refugee home, 
which sheltered at different times several thou- 
sand inmates, was also opened at Vicksburg. 
Wherever refugees assembled in any number, they 
were placed by the government under the special 
care of the army chaplains, and rations were 
issued to those unable to work. To many of 



258 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

these chaplains the Western Sanitary Commission 
sent stores for distribution. 

To Pilot Knob, where there were always large 
numbers of these people, ranging from a thou- 
sand to fifteen hundred, came in October, 1864, 
the rebel general Sterling Price. The post was 
captured, and hundreds of refugees, who had 
assisted in the defense of the place, fled for their 
lives, leaving their families behind them. On one 
day sixty men came to St. Louis with their Ger- 
man pastor, many of them shoeless, hatless, and 
half clad. At the same time there arrived many 
women and children. It again became necessary 
for the third and last time to start a refugee home 
in St. Louis. The Western Sanitary Commission 
addressed a communication to the government, 
and secured the Lawson Hospital, which they 
entirely furnished and opened in November, 
1864. This was both a refugee and freedman's 
home, and until July, 1865, when it was finally 
closed, it gave shelter, food, medical care, and in- 
struction to several thousand refugees and freed 
people, who occupied separate portions of the 
building. The women were taught cooking, house 
and laundry work, and paid small wages. The 
number of white refugees was about double that 
of the blacks, and in many cases they were found 
to be inferior in capability to the recently eman- 
cipated negroes, having that scorn of work which 
is engendered by the existence of slavery as a 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 259 



system, and being very ignorant. Not more than 
one tenth of the white refugees who applied to 
the Commission for aid were able to read and 
write. 

In addition to the shelter afforded to the refu- 
gees through the homes provided by the Com- 
mission, other assistance was given them, both 
collectively and individually. Temporary aid was 
supplemented by efforts tending to a permanent 
improvement of their condition. As in the case 
of the freedmen, schools were opened by the 
Western Sanitary Commission for the education 
of the children of refugees, with a view to rescu- 
ing them from probable vagrancy, and making 
them useful members of society. This was in 
accordance with Dr. Eliot's cherished conviction 
that popular education should be the corner-stone 
of the reconstructed republic. 

In a letter addressed to General 0. 0. Howard 
of the Freedman's Bureau, under date of August 
10, 1865, Mr. Yeatman, president of the Com- 
mission, wrote : — 

" This Commission, in order to aid government and lighten 
some of the burdens of the military commanders, especially 
in this military district, has rendered some assistance to the 
white refugees. . . . Besides taking care of the refugees 
in this city, it has sustained refugee homes at Vicksburg, 
Natchez, and Helena. It has teachers employed at Vicks- 
burg, St. Louis, and RoUa. It has furnished clothing, books, 
medicine, vegetables, garden seeds, garden implements, 
farming utensils, and teachers to every point from which 



260 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

application was made for them. . . . The points embraced 
in our work have been Natchez, Yicksburg, Helena, Little 
Eock, Duvall's Bluff, Fort Smith, Fayetteville ; Ironton, 
Cape Girardeau, RoUa, and Springfield, Missouri." 

From a report of the Arkansas Eelief Commis- 
sion we learn that nearly all the suffering and 
destitution among the refugees in Arkansas was 
" the result of their being what is called Union 
families." 

In the fall of 1862, before the Emancipation 
Proclamation went into effect, large numbers of 
the so-called contrabands took refuge within our 
lines, and it became a perplexing problem how 
to dispose of them. At Helena three or four 
thousand of these people had collected in the 
summer of 1862, seeking refuge near the army. 
They were established by General Washburn in 
a place back of the town which became known 
as Camp Ethiopia. Here they lived in cast-off 
army tents, in caves, and in shelters of brush. 
Others were crowded into wretched dwellings. 
This was the best temporary provision that could 
be made for them, but as winter approached their 
suffering was extreme. The able-bodied men were 
compelled to labor on the fortifications of the 
town, to load and unload steamboats, and to per- 
form all kinds of " fatigue duty." Nominally 
they were paid ten dollars a month for their ser- 
vices, as provided by congressional enactment ; 
but through the indifference of the military com- 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 261 



manders succeeding General Curtis, their names 
were frequently not enrolled, and they received 
no compensation for months of toil. Often they 
were seized by press-gangs, who patrolled the 
streets to gather up contrabands for forced labor. 
Under these conditions they were unable to pro- 
vide for their families, who must be furnished 
with government rations. At one time, contrary 
to the Articles of War, they were driven by a 
military order beyond our lines, and delivered up 
to their rebel masters. Hundreds of these poor 
people were ill, and the only hospital provided for 
them would hardly suffice for twenty patients. 
Early in January, 1863, Miss Maria R. Mann, a 
philanthropic woman of superior ability, was sent 
by the Western Sanitary Commission to Helena, 
Arkansas, with a large supply of hospital and 
other stores, to fit up a hospital for the colored 
people and supply their most urgent needs. She 
was assisted in her work by two of the army chap- 
lains on detached service at Helena, and distress- 
ing conditions were greatly ameliorated. She 
received contributions of money and material 
from friends in New England, and Dr. Eliot was 
treasurer of a special fund for the same purpose, 
also donated by people from that section. He 
records the receipt of $980 from Miss Elizabeth 
Peabody, for Miss Mann. 

" During the month of October, 1863, the con- 
dition of the (now) freed people again enhsted 



262 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

the earnest consideration of the Western Sanitary 
Commission/' wrote their secretary. Rev. J. G. 
Forman. The same state of things that had ex- 
isted at Helena was reported as existing at many 
other points between Columbus, Kentucky, and 
Natchez, Mississippi. 

At a meeting of the Board of the Commission 
held November 2, 1863, Dr. Eliot " described 
the suffering condition of the contrabands, and 
negro troops of the Mississippi Valley," and sug- 
gested that an agent be sent to New England to 
solicit contributions of clothing and funds, and 
that the agencies of the Commission be used for 
distributing supplies to the needy freed people, 
and exercising a general oversight and care over 
them. He also advised that the Commission send 
teachers to the South and establish schools, and 
that General Schofield be asked to detail Chap- 
lain H. D. Fisher to go to New England to soHcit 
funds for these purposes. 

Four days later, on the 6th of November, a 
letter was addressed by the Commission to the 
President. His attention was called to the needs 
of the freed people, and to the necessity of as- 
sisting them before another winter set in. The 
Commission offered, as an incidental part of its 
work, to solicit contributions and extend rehef to 
them. The proposal was favorably regarded, and 
the Secretary of War promised ail the aid pos- 
sible in the way of transportation and otherwise. 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 263 



At the same time, with the cordial approval of 
General Schofield, ChapJain H. D. Fisher was 
sent to New England, under the direction of the 
Commission, to solicit funds. As a result, cloth- 
ing, shoes, and other articles, amounting in value 
to $30,000, and $13,000 additional in money, 
were obtained by a committee in Boston, from 
that place and neighboring cities and towns. 

In December, 1863, the president of the West- 
ern Sanitary Commission made a visit to the lower 
Mississippi to investigate the condition of the 
freedmen. The information he thus obtained was 
embodied in a long report of sixteen pages, of 
which a brief abstract follows. Mr. Yeatman 
found about forty thousand of these freed people 
gathered in camps at different places between 
Cairo and Natchez. Their condition was almost 
uniformly wretched. In the cotton-growing re- 
gion, on abandoned plantations, were discovered 
about twenty colored men who had raised from 
five to ten bales of cotton. The majority of their 
race were working for white lessees at inadequate 
wages, $5 a month for women, and $7 for men, 
with wretched subsistence. When employed by 
government quartermasters, the freedmen were 
frequently not paid, and were overcharged for 
goods. In Memphis large numbers had been 
pressed into the government service at $10 a 
month, when they might have earned elsewhere 
two or three times that amount. " Besides the 



264 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



fact that men are thus pressed into service/' 
declared Mr. Yeatman, " thousands have been 
employed for weeks and months who have never 
received anything but promises to pay." It was 
hardly matter for surprise that the negroes were 
everywhere "greatly depressed at their condi- 
tion." The only thing, we are told, that sustained 
them, was their wonderful faith in Divine Provi- 
dence. 

When this report was submitted to the West- 
ern Sanitary Commission, Mr. Yeatman was dele- 
gated to visit Washington and present the matter 
to the government. Mr. Yeatman also took with 
him a series of printed " suggestions of organi- 
zation for freed labor and the leasing of plan- 
tations along the Mississippi Eiver, " for the 
consideration of the authorities at Washington. 
Both the report and the suggestions were highly 
approved, and Mr. Yeatman authorized to ac- 
company Mr. Mellen, the special supervising 
agent of the Treasury Department, to Vicksburg 
to carry the plan into effect. 

This new plan of labor required that the f reed- 
man should receive from $12 to $25 per month 
for his work in the cotton field, and pro\4ded 
for the enforcement of the contract as to labor 
and wages. The price of goods was regulated, 
and arrangement was made for the establishment, 
under a superintendent, of home farms for the 
helpless and destitute, these latter to be sup- 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 265 



ported by the income of a tax levied by the 
government on cotton. Provision was also made 
for schools and teachers. To carry out this new 
order of things commissioners of plantations, act- 
ing under the Treasury Department, were to be 
appointed. 

This system at first met with some opposition 
from the lessees, but was finally acquiesced in. 
After the removal of the troops from some of the 
districts the Secretary of War consented to give 
the services of the Mounted Brigade to protect 
the freed people on the plantations. 

To obtain funds for the continued work of the 
Western Sanitary Commission, it was decided in 
the winter of 1863-64 to hold a Mississippi Val- 
ley Sanitary Fair at St. Louis in the spring. In 
March a pamphlet was issued by the Commission 
containing a report of its past work and a state- 
ment of that which remained to be done in the com- 
ing year, for which |500,000 were required, since 
the present resources were exhausted. Notice was 
given of the coming fair to be held in May, of 
which the Freedmen's and Union Refugees' De- 
partment was to be (by " unanimous vote of the 
Executive Committee of the Mississippi Valley 
Sanitary Fair ") a special department. Dr. Eliot 
and Mr. Yeatman "were appointed a Committee 
to prepare an appeal to the friends of freedom 
everywhere, soliciting sympathy and cooperation 
in the success of this department.'' From this 



266 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

appeal, written by Dr. Eliot, extracts are sub- 
joined for the information therein contained as to 
the work then being accomplished for these two 
classes of suffering people : " From the beginning 
of the rebellion," asserted Dr. Eliot, " the West- 
ern Sanitary Commission has devoted much time 
and attention to the Union refugees, and has 
done all in its power for their protection. . . . 
Many thousands of this most unfortunate class 
of citizens have been provided for. In this work 
the Commission has acted partly as agents of the 
government, and partly with funds entrusted to 
it for such uses. It has always been much re- 
stricted by want of means . . . but of those who 
have succeeded in reaching the city none have 
been left to suffer. 

" Since the month of October, 1863, the West- 
ern Sanitary Commission has also acted as the 
agents of relief to the freed people of the Mis- 
sissippi Valley. It has received and distributed 
goods and clothing to the amount of $40,000, 
and is still prosecuting the work through its own 
agents and those of the freedmen's aid associa- 
tions of St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, New 
York, and other cities. It has also labored with 
success to ameliorate the condition of the freed- 
men, by exposing the oppression, almost worse 
than slavery, to which they were subjected by un- 
merciful contractors and army sharks, with rea- 
son to hope that a just system of work and wages 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 267 



will soon be established in its place. If the freed 
people are but treated with justice, generosity 
will not long be needed. But for the current 
year, during the transition period, there is enough 
to do, and all the funds that the largest philan- 
thropy can spare will find profitable employment. 
In elevating two million of slaves to the condi- 
tion of freedmen, all the zeal and liberality of a 
Christian community wiU find room to work." 

Notice was given that an additional appeal 
would be issued in a few days. This appeared in 
the form of a letter addressed to Dr. Eliot, and 
dated Vicksburg, March 7, 1864. It was written 
by Mr. Mann, a regular agent of the Commis- 
sion, and contained a description of the condition 
of the negroes who followed Sherman's army into 
Vicksburg. 

Mr. Mann wrote : — 

" The return of Sherman's expedition had been antici- 
pated by us all as sure to bring along a crowd of blacks, but 
no one, I think, had formed an idea of the utter destitution, 
the squalid misery in which they would come. AU the way 
from Meridian this black river flowed in the wake of the 
army, increased by constant accessions, until sullen and slow 
it wound its way into Vicksburg with 4500 souls. Following 
through a country twice ravaged by a devouring host, they 
had literally nothing left them for subsistence but the rem- 
nants left by our troops. Foraging parties scoured the coun- 
try on either hand to obtain supplies for the soldiers, but no 
one brought these people food, and houses and barns pil- 
laged and burnt left nothing for them save what the hungry 
soldier could spare. . . . 



268 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



" The expedition returned here on the 3d inst. Just at 
dusk the train of contrabands came in. Slowly and sadly 
they dragged along through the streets. Mules and oxen 
gaunt and famished, wagons loaded with children whose 
weary, despairing look will haunt me, I believe, as long as 
I live, with a mother or two in each trying to soothe the little 
ones crying with hunger and fatigue, all clothed in the dirt- 
colored homespun they always wear, torn to rags and tatters, 
leaving them in many cases almost naked. . . . The little I 
could do for these poor people that night I did. Anticipat- 
ing a need, I had drawn on the commissary heavily for bread, 
and had a large amount on hand. I had the ambulance of 
the Western Sanitary Commission loaded with this bread, 
and taking along half a dozen kind-hearted soldiers, we went 
the whole length of this wagon train, and gave to each fam- 
ily a loaf or two. . . . The eagerness with which they took 
and ate it told how grateful it was to them. . . . That night 
they lay on the levee in their wagons, and on the ground." 

Mr. Mann relates how the following morning 
^'the authorities undertook to place this quon- 
dam merchandise on board the boats that were 
waiting to remove them to their future camps." 
Many objected, and eluded the guards. The 
camps were cheerless places, the only shelter be- 
ing " a long shed open on all sides." This was 
the only practicable temporary arrangement that 
could be made at the time. Kations were fur- 
nished by the government, and Mr. Mann dis- 
tributed clothing furnished by the National 
Freedmen's Belief Association of New York. 
Gradually matters improved. Commenting on the 
condition of the negroes at Pawpaw Island, Mr. 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 269 



Mann wrote : " When I visited them in company 
with Mr. Yeatman several weeks ago, indolence 
was the rule and sickness very common ; the 
other day being called over there on business I 
saw that they were almost all at work, men and 
women, in field and cabin, and almost all were 
well." 

The Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair was in 
every respect a success. It was generously sup- 
ported by the people of Missouri and other States. 
The proceeds exceeded the sum asked and re- 
quired for the work of the coming year by the 
Western Sanitary Commission, amounting to over 
half a milHon dollars. From the actual receipts 
credited to the Refugees' and Freedmen's Depart- 
ment, supplemented by donations of which the 
disposal was left to the option of the Commission, 
nearly $32,000 was obtained for this branch of 
their work. The entire amount expended for 
refugees and freedmen by that organization dur- 
ing the war was over $72,000. In addition nearly 
two hundred boxes of clothing and material were 
received. Boston and the neighboring towns con- 
tributed new material for clothing amounting in 
value to $40,000. This latter donation was dis- 
tributed to freedmen in camps along the Missis- 
sippi in 1864. Clothing, hospital, and sanitary 
stores for the use of refugees and freedmen were 
sent to thirty or more different points, and the 
entire estimated value of the supplies thus dis- 



270 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

tributed was $65,000, which, added to the cash 
expenditures, made a total of nearly $138,000 
used in this incidental work of the Western San- 
itary Commission. 

To provide for the colored orphans thus left 
destitute during the war, in May, 1864, a build- 
ing was purchased by the Western Sanitary Com- 
mission, and fitted up as a freedmen's orphans' 
home at a total cost of $12,000. To this insti- 
tution, later known as the Colored Orphans' 
Home, the Commission in 1870 donated the ad- 
ditional sum of $7000. 

As preliminary work in the education of the 
children of refugees and freedmen before the 
organization of the various freedmen's aid socie- 
ties, the Western Sanitary Commission estabHshed 
and maintained nine schools, and appointed 
and paid sixteen women teachers. Ten thousand 
school books were furnished. This educational 
work was especially advocated and advised by 
Dr. EHot. 

Under date of June 24, 1864, is an entry in 
the record book of the Commission, which is in- 
teresting, as showing the change involved in the 
status of a race through its emancipation. The 
extract follows : " The president of the Commis- 
sion stated that an application had been made for 
aid to the colored schools of St. Louis. In the 
same connection it was also stated that a petition 
had been made to the board of education of St. 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 271 

Louis to appropriate towards the support of these 
schools an amount equal to the tax on the pro- 
perty of colored citizens for school purposes ; that 
the petition was favorably received, and a dispo- 
sition existed to grant the appropriation, but a 
difficulty arose from the laws of the State making 
it a criminal offense to teach this class of children, 
the board not feeling itseK at liberty to violate 
in its organic capacity the state law ; but they 
had decided to petition the legislature at its next 
session to repeal all such laws, which no doubt 
would be done. On the removal of this difficulty 
the board would, without any doubt, make a suit- 
able appropriation for the colored schools of St. 
Louis. Until this can be done those schools must 
be aided from other sources. 

" On motion of Dr. Eliot it was voted to appro- 
priate one hundred dollars per month for the 
above purpose from funds given for this class of 
charities." 

A high school for the children of colored peo- 
ple was, during the year lS64r-65, carried on in 
the basement of the Church of the Messiah, of 
which Dr. Eliot was pastor. It was supported 
from funds contributed by friends of Dr. Eliot 
in Massachusetts. 

In the winter of 1864r-65 an Act creating a 
Kefugees' and Freedmen's National Bureau was 
passed by Congress. The position of commis- 
sioner of this bureau was offered to Mr. Yeatman, 



272 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



and declined. Major-Gen eral 0. 0. Howard was 
then appointed. At the close of this year, 1865, 
there were also a number of freedmen's relief 
associations engaged in the work of supplying 
teachers and schools to the freed people of the 
South, and the Western Sanitary Commission 
withdrew from a labor, always incidental to its 
primary object of relieving physical need. 

The proceeds of the Mississippi Valley Sani- 
tary Fair enabled the Western Sanitary Commis- 
sion to widen the circle of its beneficence, and 
accomplish many useful purposes. On motion, 
and with the advice of Dr. Eliot, a building with 
extensive grounds was purchased at Webster, Mis- 
souri, for a soldiers' orphans' home. For this 
property, and in the erection of additional build- 
ings, $57,000 was expended, and later, $25,000 
towards the endowment of this home was con- 
tributed by the Commission. To the " War Re- 
lief Fund," for the benefit of the families of sol- 
diers throughout the North, $25,000 was given. 
To the Ladies' Union Aid Society, which had 
been an invaluable adjunct in the work of the 
Western Sanitary Commission during the war, in 
furnishing hospital and other stores, the sum of 
$50,000 was donated, to be expended by them 
in the continuance of their useful work. 

In January, 1864, there appeared in the 
" North American Review " an article on " The 
Sanitary Commission," in which no mention was 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 273 



made of the work of the Western Sanitary Com- 
mission. This called forth a response from Dr. 
EHot, published in the same magazine, in April, 
1864, and also as a pamphlet. In this article Dr. 
Eliot gave an account of the origin of the West- 
ern Commission and its methods. Referring to 
the sources of their receipts and the mode of col- 
lection, Dr. Eliot stated that their experience in 
this respect was " remarkable, if not peculiar." 

The Western Sanitary Commission, not wish- 
ing to interfere with the plans of the United 
States Commission, never adopted a regular sys- 
tem of auxiHaries, but relied chiefly upon spon- 
taneous contributions which came to them in re- 
sponse to the notices and appeals, written by Dr. 
Eliot, which were published in the papers from 
time to time, about once in six months. Largely 
through the influence of that ardent patriot, 
Thomas Starr King, California, early in the war, 
contributed $50,000. In January, 1863, $50,000, 
as previously stated, was collected in Boston. In 
January, 1864, $30,000 was subscribed in St. 
Louis in one week. The Missouri Legislature 
gave to the Commission $75,000, to be appro- 
priated to the relief of Missouri soldiers, and 
the St. Louis County Court contributed to the 
Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair a farm which 
sold for $40,000. The receipts of the fair added 
over half a million to the funds of the Commis- 
sion. 



274 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

When Dr. Eliot's article was written in the 
spring of 1864, Massachusetts had already sent 
$500,000 to the Western Sanitary Commission, 
and Boston alone $200,000. These contribu- 
tions were later increased by money and goods 
sent from Boston and vicinity for the refugees 
and freedmen. Massachusetts and Missouri thus 
led in the generosity of their offerings, all of 
which came as an expression of confidence in the 
work of the members of the Western Sanitary 
Commission, by whom about four and a quarter 
millions in money and goods was distributed dur- 
ing the war period. Probably an equal amount 
of money never accomplished more good. 

Such were the changing conditions during the 
Civil War in Missouri, that it would have been 
impossible for a sanitary commission acting from 
a distance to understand and direct such work as 
was accomplished by the members of the West- 
ern Sanitary Commission, who had long been 
actively associated with the interests and institu- 
tions of St. Louis, and understood the signs of 
the times. They had been chosen for their un- 
questioned loyalty, their efficiency and discretion. 
Mr. Yeatman, a Southerner by birth and a slave- 
holder by inheritance, had early revolted against 
the system of slavery, yet appreciated the situ- 
ation of those who had grown up where it was 
a recognized social institution. He had at first 
ranged himself with the Conditional Union party, 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 275 



but was too loyal, too sensible, too just, to retain 
that position. His experience of the evils of slav- 
ery gave him a special interest in the work for 
the freedmen, in which he was very active and 
efficient. Too generous in his impulses to acquire 
great wealth, when he had given all that he could 
he regretted that he had no more to spare. A 
letter written by Dr. Eliot to him in the summer 
of 1886 is quoted as a deserved tribute to a 
Christian gentleman. 

Jas. E. Yeatman: 

My very dear friend, — If I were called upon to name 
the six most useful men in St. Louis since 1861 until now, I 
should put you among them, and probably at head of the 
list. To a benevolent man money-giving is an easy service ; 
but to give time and sympathy and personal regard is the 
real test of Christian charity. It is this which comes hard 
to most of us, and the want of it neutralizes all efforts to 
aid the poor and suffering. To you it seems like the breath 
of the nostrils, and the blessings of many who were ready 
to perish come upon you. I know of no man the daily re- 
cord of whose life is a so uninterrupted benediction, and 
your brotherly friendship is to me a priceless treasure. 
Never breathe a word of regret that silver and gold are 
wanting, when you are daily giving so much better things. 
Most truly yours, 

W. G. Eliot. 

At the annual celebration of the Alumni of 
Washington University, March 2, 1871, Dr. Eliot 
made the following announcement : " A few weeks 
ago the University, by unanimous vote of its 



276 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



directors, accepted in trust the sum of $30,000, 
from the Western Sanitary Commission, for the 
endowment of twenty scholarships in the colle- 
giate and polytechnic departments, to be filled 
by the children and descendants of Union sol- 
diers who served in the late Civil War, and in de- 
fault of such appHcants, by students recommended 
by the superintendent of the St. Louis public 
schools, and the principal of the high school. 

" At the same time the sum of 1 10,000 was 
received in trust from the same source as a sus- 
tentation fund, for the aid of such descendants 
of Union soldiers filling the scholarships, and of 
others, at the discretion of the board of direct- 
ors. Both the scholarships and the fund will 
bear the name of the Western Sanitary Commis- 
sion, of which James E. Yeatman is president, 
and Carlos S. Greeley, treasurer; and it may 
not be out of place to say that the whole of this 
money now paid over is interest earnings of the 
money received by the Sanitary Commission, 
under the careful management of the treasurer, 
the whole principal amount given by the public 
having been accounted for many years ago. That 
is my idea of a model treasurer, who had in his 
hands at one time over $600,000, for all of which 
he was individually responsible, for the manage- 
ment of which he never received a dollar's salary, 
and for the safe keeping of which he never gave 
security or bond." 



THE WESTERN SANITARY COMMISSION 277 

After Dr. Eliot's death, from the same inter- 
est earnings " of the Western Sanitary Commis- 
sion fund, an important bequest was made at the 
instance of Mr. Yeatman, to the Nurses' Training 
School of St. Louis, a useful and much needed 
institution, in the establishment of which Dr. 
Eliot had been much interested. In suggesting 
that this action be taken, Mr. Yeatman made an 
address before the board of the Commission, of 
which he copied the following portion and sent 
it to a member of Dr. Eliot's family : " I recom- 
mend that a sum of not less than ten thousand 
dollars be appropriated for the erection of a build- 
ing for the Nurses' Training School of St. Louis, 
to be used as a home for nurses, and to be known 
as the William G. Eliot Memorial Home, in honor 
of him whose loss we have been called so recently 
to mourn, one who has been associated with us 
for more than a quarter of a century, and who 
may justly be considered the originator of the 
Western Sanitary Commission, of which the Sol- 
diers' Orphans' Home is but the outgrowth, its 
continuity so to speak. We must all acknowledge 
that we are indebted to our lamented friend and 
brother for its paternity. 

" It was his patriotic and philanthropic head and 
heart which conceived, organized, and vitalized 
the Western Sanitary Commission. 

^' In saying this no injustice is intended or will 
be done to others, whom he selected to cooperate, 



278 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

and who labored not less faithfully and zealously 
through all those troublesome times that so tried 
the hearts and souls of men, and who have con- 
tinued their labors down to the present day. We 
who have been associated with, and labored with 
him, must feel that the credit belonged to Wil- 
liam G. Eliot more than to any other person for 
the growth and success of the Western Sanitary 
Commission. He should have been its head, and 
I can truly say was so, in all but name. His 
modest merit prevented him from allowing him- 
self to be made the president of the association, 
an organization created by himself ; but it was 
his mind which conceived, brought into life, har- 
monized, united and brought all of its members 
to work together as one man, and by reason of 
which the wonderful results of the Commission 
were accomplished, and through which all the 
humanities of the war vitalized and crystallized. 

" I feel that no more fitting monument could be 
erected to a man, who did so much, not only for 
the work with which we have been associated with 
him, but for all the great and varied charities, 
educational, philanthropic, and all things else, 
which would benefit humanity, and would ad- 
vance the material and moral interests of the city. 

" There has been no citizen who has shown a 
greater public spirit, or done more for the gen- 
eral good of the city, and his loss will be felt and 
deplored for long years to come." 



CHAPTEK XI 

THE NEGRO IN THE KECONSTRUCTION PERIOD 

In the spring of 1865, when the festival of 
Easter was near at hand, suddenly on the even- 
ing of Good Friday, in a theatre of the National 
Capital, there rang out a pistol shot whose echo 
might have been heard throughout the length 
and breadth of the land, so quickly sped the 
ominous message that a great leader, patient, 
wise, just, and good, had fallen a victim to the 
spirit of disloyalty and treason incarnated in a 
fanatic. 

A few days previously, in token of rejoicing 
at the near approach of peace, the pulpit of the 
Church of the Messiah in St. Louis had been 
draped with American flags ; but when the news 
of the assassination of President Lincoln was 
received, as Dr. Eliot declared, "before the 
thanksgiving was uttered," the funeral black was 
spread over the national colors " in token of a 
nation's grief." 

Easter Sunday, in front of the pulpit on the 
communion table, lihes, perpetual symbol of the 
immortal Hfe, glowed against the sombre back- 
ground. Dr. Eliot, in accordance with his usual 



280 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

custom on that anniversary, preached a sermon 
on the " Eesurrection." At its close he referred 
to the death of church members, and then in 
tones of deep solemnity said : " But why should 
I dwell upon our personal bereavements when we 
are all suffering under this dreadful weight of 
national grief ? The whole nation mourns ; the 
loyal, because the honored and beloved head of 
our country has been stricken down by an assas- 
sin's hand ; the disloyal, because among all their 
supposed enemies the kindliest heart has ceased 
to beat. Under this amazement of grief, in this 
tumult of sorrow, I scarcely dare to speak." Dr. 
Eliot found in this " dreadful act," although 
probably " the work of a few," another proof of 
the terrible guilt of treason and one of its ulti- 
mate legitimate results. Reiterating the senti- 
ments expressed in his sermon delivered at the 
beginning of the war on the " Higher Law Doc- 
trine," he said : " The underlying sin of rebel- 
lion is found in the resistance of law, in the 
attempt to overthrow the established order of 
society by taking the law into one's own hands. 
The first gun that was fired in Charleston har- 
bor at the Star of the West is that whose echo is 
this day filling our hearts with dread. Treason 
has now done its worst, to the horror of those 
who, perhaps, first instigated it; but they who 
deliberately took the first step of wrong cannot 
be held blameless of its final result." Dr. Eliot 



THE NEGRO AND RECONSTRUCTION 281 



believed that in view of "this terrible calamity," 
all "minor differences of opinion would disap- 
pear/' and all citizens " make common cause for 
the maintenance of law and the restoration of 
peace." 

The inculcation and growth of the spirit of 
reverence for law. Dr. Eliot considered the basis 
of the work of reconstruction in the South. 
With the majority of his countrymen, he re- 
garded the death of Lincoln at the beginning of 
that critical period as an irreparable loss both 
to whites and blacks in the former slave States. 
He had always foreseen the gravity of the social 
problems that would attend sudden emancipation. 
Now that it had come to pass, he realized the 
compKcations that would arise from the changed 
attitude of two races, in the passage from abso- 
lute dominance on one side and servility on the 
other, to nominal equality of rights under the 
Constitution and laws. He believed that all 
changes in the reconstruction of society should 
be slow to be permanent and thorough, and 
deprecated premature legislation, for which the 
blacks were yet unprepared. Believing as he did 
that there would have been no rebellion had 
there been a system of popular education through- 
out the South, he emphasized that and educated 
industrial training as among the most potent 
agencies to be employed in the restoration of 
peace and prosperity. To the voters of Missouri 



282 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

he said, "Build schoolhouses for all the chil- 
dren of the State. . . . Open evening schools 
for adults, so that every voter may be taught to 
read the laws he is required to obey. . . . Put off 
this troublesome question of negro suffrage to 
be finally settled by the people in five or ten 
years. ... In the mean while establish the prin- 
ciple of intelligeut manhood as the standard by 
which to measure men." Popular education, with 
the resulting increased intelligence and respect 
for law, was clearly a fundamental basis of recon- 
struction in Dr. Eliot's judgment. 

Dr. Ehot's constant interest in the welfare of 
the colored race continued through this recon- 
struction period, and he watched with soHcitude 
the progress of events. Although the RepubH- 
cans made many mistakes, he believed that for 
some years to come the cause of the negro would 
be safest in their hands; and when, in 1872, the 
radicals opposed to Grant's reelection to the 
presidency advocated coalition with the Demo- 
cratic party, and the candidacy of Horace Greeley, 
Dr. Eliot viewed the movement with apprehen- 
sion, especially as regarded the effect of Greeley's 
election upon the treatment of the negro in the 
Southern and Border States, Missouri among the 
rest. He therefore wrote to Charles Siunner, then 
one of Greeley's ardent supporters, expressing his 
concern at the turn things were taking in the 
Border States, fearing that if the Greeley coali- 



THE NEGRO AND RECONSTRUCTION 283 



tion party succeeded, much of their social work 
would require to be done over again. In the 
event of Greeley's election he beheved that the 
"local leaders of the old Secessionist party would 
control matters not only in the Southern, but the 
Border States, there already being observable a 
manifest change of tone for the worst even in 
St. Louis, where the prime movers were not the 
loyal Democrats, but the active rebels of 1862- 
63, the few Republicans standing with them not 
all being trustworthy. 

"On the whole," Dr. Eliot wrote to Mr. 
Sumner, " T firmly beheve that the second elec- 
tion of Lincoln was not more important to the 
safety and progress of the country than the 
success of the RepubKcan party is now. It is 
true that Grant has made many mistakes, and 
wiU make many more. . . . But the success of 
Greeley would be the success of the Southern 
Democrats, so far as the South and its interests 
are concerned, and the barbarism of social op- 
pression towards the weaker race would be re- 
established. I sincerely hope that you, ^the 
friend of the downtrodden,' will not lend the 
potent influence of your name to this new de- 
parture." 

The reply of Charles Sumner to Dr. Eliot's 
communication was published in the " New York 
Tribune" four years later, in 1876, with the 
statement that it had been written " in reply to 



284 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

a friend in Missouri who had expressed distrust 
of the action of the Democratic leaders if they 
should obtain control of the Border States." 
The letter shows the extent to which the judg- 
ment of a statesman may be warped by preju- 
dice. Mr. Sumner wrote in part : " I am obhged 
by your letter and note with pain what you say 
about Democrats. The attempt now making is 
one of the greatest in pohtical history. It is to 
bring an adverse political party on the platform 
it has always opposed. It is a revolution by which 
Democrats become Kepubhcans and the issues of 
the war are settled. 

" In such a change there must be difficulties and 
trials. Original prejudice cannot be conquered 
at once. But we must not be discouraged. The 
Democrats stand on the same platform as we 
do, and they accept as their candidate a lifetime 
abohtionist." 

Unfortunately for Sumner's ardent hopes as 
to the result of the transformation of Democrats 
into Eepublicans, Greeley was overwhelmingly 
defeated in the election that soon followed. In 
the fall of 1876, Dr. EHot again felt much 
solicitude as to the result of the approaching 
presidential election, believing as he did that 
"a united South with a Northern plastic sup- 
plement" meant "a renewed rebellion against 
law and order." His fears were dispelled when 
Rutherford B. Hayes was declared elected, and 



THE NEGRO AND RECONSTRUCTION 285 



a new policy was adopted more in accordance 
with Dr. Eliot's own judgment. While desiring 
strict justice and kindness for the blacks, he had 
not approved of forcing political supremacy 
upon them. Kegarding the premature enfran- 
chisement of the blacks as a misfortune to the 
race, he sympathized with the people of the 
South in the resulting misgovernment. 

For two consecutive winters after the close of 
the Civil War Dr. Eliot visited New Orleans in 
the interest of the Unitarian Church there, which 
had suffered in the general disorganization. 
With the same object in view he returned to 
New Orleans very soon after Hayes's inaugura- 
tion, and found that social and political condi- 
tions had not improved in the intervening period. 
Two parties existed in Louisiana, one composed 
of the colored voters with a small white Repub- 
lican contingent, the other of the great majority 
of the white voters. Democrats. Neither party 
recognized the other, and each had elected a 
governor, Packard representing the former party, 
and Nicholls the latter. The Packard govern- 
ment was sustained by the Federal authorities. 
Believing that the only solution of so unsatis- 
factory a condition of affairs lay in a change of 
policy on the part of the incoming administration, 
and that the people of Louisiana should have 
greater latitude in the settlement of their domes- 
tic affairs, Dr. Eliot wrote to President Hayes a 



286 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



letter of which the original, marked Sent March 
26, 1877/' was as follows : — 

I. I have been in New Orleans the past week, and know- 
ing how difficult it is to get at the truth of things, have 
thought it may be of some use to tell you my own impres- 
sions. As I am quite well acquainted there, and mix freely 
with all classes, and as I am under no suspicion of having 
interested motives or an official duty to discharge, my 
opportunities for learning the real feeling of the commu- 
nity have been reasonably good, although I claim no special 
skill of interpretation. If you attach sufficient importance 
to it to inquire who I am, you can do so from Hon. Carl 
Schurz or General Sherman. 

The result in my mind is that whatever abstract justice 
may demand under a strict construction of the Fifteenth 
Amendment, the recognition of Packard involves the pre- 
sent and continued maintenance of his authority by the 
United States military strength. Upon this point there is 
no division of opinion. Whether or not it would be a quiet, 
though enforced maintenance, is doubtful ; my own opinion 
is that there would be frequent strife, an increase of bitter 
feeling, in short, a continuance of suppressed rebellion, 
ready to break out at a moment's notice, and on sUght pro- 
vocation, in every part of the State. It must be a strong 
and visible rule of recognized Power at the best. 

The population of the city and State is almost unanimous 
in refusal to submit to the Packard control, except at the 
point of the bayonet. Under Packard the Government at 
Washington would be the Government of Louisiana, except 
that the details would be administered by incompetent, 
timid, and half-educated men. 

I was yesterday in the legislature, both House and 
Senate, of the Republican party, and also in the governor's 
parlor ; and although I am and always have been a Republi- 
can, and in every way on the freedom side, I must frankly 



THE NEGRO AND RECONSTRUCTION 287 



confess that I should not be willing to trust my interests to 
the influences and men which there control. A large major- 
ity of the legislature is composed of colored people, who 
are certainly not above the average of respectable negroes 
in our cities, and the white members, if I may judge by 
appearance and manners, are a very second rate sort of 
men. Any one individual of decided ability and good know- 
ledge of parliamentary rule, could easily control the whole 
assembly in either house. 

I cannot wonder at the unwillingness of property hold- 
ers and educated people to be under the control of such 
bodies of men, even if lawfully elected ; but add to this the 
universal conviction here that most of them were not so 
elected, and the obstinacy of resistance is only what might 
reasonably be expected. 

II. If the troops are withdrawn without distinct recogni- 
tion of either party, the Packard government will be com- 
pelled quickly to give way. I doubt if it could continue a 
week, many think not an hour. The moderate Conserva- 
tives say that no attack would be made, and no compulsion 
used, and the leaders would honestly try to prevent it, but 
the young men would be with difficulty restrained, and the 
fear excited would be such that no Packard legislature or 
body would dare to keep together. I find the women, the 
mothers and wives, much more outspoken and bitter than 
the men, and the whole social influence in all circles, espe- 
cially the highest, is in favor of strong and summary mea- 
sures. At all events, one way or the other, the Packard 
party would quickly subside, with or without protest, having 
no inherent strength and no external support. The NichoUs 
government would then exist de facto if not de jure, and 
would soon of necessity be the recognized government of 
the State. Whether or not it is possible to recognize 
NichoUs, I do not pretend to decide. If the question could 
have been decided at the election in such a manner as to get 
an intelligent fair vote, it is not improbable that the Repub- 



288 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



lican Electoral Ticket would have prevailed and the State 
Democratic. I find almost no opposition to the National 
Ticket at present, but on the contrary a prevailing content- 
ment, which could easily be converted to entire support. 
Certainly, taking things as they are, the question is clearly 
divisible, in equity at least ; for in their local affairs the 
largest possible latitude of choice should be allowed, and 
those who hold the chief interests of the State should be 
permitted to control them. 

III. Under Democratic rule it is not probable that the 
spirit of the Fifteenth Amendment will be kept, and 
scarcely the letter of it, for some years to come. Things will 
settle down to about the same level as in Mississippi and 
Alabama; and where the blacks are in the majority, or 
approximating it, they will be " discouraged " from voting, 
with whatever degree of moral or physical force may be 
requisite to secure the end. They will be entirely free to 
vote the Democratic ticket, and beyond that wiU have free- 
dom with penalty. 

But gradually that wiU improve, as the colored people 
advance in thrift and intelligence, as new social and politi- 
cal issues arise, and as the educational interests of the South 
are better regarded. In the last element the only sure hope 
for the future is found, and if an educational test or qualifi- 
cation for voting could be secured by an Amendment to the 
Constitution, we might reasonably look for enduring peace. 

Such results will be slow and not quite satisfactory, but 
in no other direction is the outlook equally good. I was in 
New Orleans, in charge of a congregation, part of the two 
winters immediately succeeding the war, and am sorry to 
say that nothing has been gained since that time. Both the 
color line and the party line are more marked, political and 
social animosity is increased. A whole generation of young 
persons has grown up deeply imbued with a sense of injus- 
tice suffered, of wrongs endured, so that nothing but the 
hopelessness of resistance prevents an outbreak. The con- 



THE NEGRO AND RECONSTRUCTION 289 



tinuance of such a condition of things is not safe nor wise, 
even if practicable. From good authority I can state that 
ten thousand armed militia in New Orleans, and thirty-five 
in the other parishes, are ready at a moment's notice. They 
are well drilled, ably officered, and held under constraint 
only by strict military discipline. They are willing to serve 
at their own cost, and when needed, voluntary supphes of 
money come in. Such an organization of men, with the 
belief that their cause is just, cannot be regarded with in- 
difference, scarcely without fear, particularly when we think 
that the whole South is in hearty sympathy with them. 

I am very sure that some method must be found of 
effective conciliation, and believe that the hardships inci- 
dent to the colored people will be less than in a continuance 
of the past poUcy of government ah extra, which will soon 
be nothing else than a social war of races in which the 
weaker must be crushed. 

Few men have worked harder for the Union cause or for 
the colored race, both slaves and freedmen, than I have in 
my poor way ; but I should be willing to take the responsi- 
bility of the new policy, if it were mine to take, and with 
it whatever blame might come. He serves his party best 
who serves his country best, and the moral courage of mod- 
eration is often greater than that of force. 

I trust you will pardon me, Mr. President, for this in- 
trusion. I began this letter in New Orleans, and have 
written much of it in the railroad cars, and very hastily ; 
but the opinions expressed have been deliberately gained, 
and I believe are substantially correct. 

Earnestly praying for the complete and perfect success 
of your administration, and feehng sure of it, 
I remain, though unknown to you. 

Your friend, W. G. Eliot. 



April 8, 1877, there appeared in the " St. 
Louis Republican " a letter from Dr. Eliot re- 



290 WILLIAM GREEmEAF ELIOT 

lating to the condition of affairs in Louisiana, 
and embodying substantially the facts and opin- 
ions expressed in his letter to President Hayes. 
In prefatory remarks it was announced editori- 
ally that a reporter had called upon Dr. Eliot to 
request from him a statement for publication 
immediately upon his return from New Orleans, 
but as Dr. EHot had at that time addressed a 
letter to prominent personages in Washington 
relating in detail the impression made upon him 
by his observations in New Orleans, he regarded 
it as improper to convey these facts to the press, 
until his communication had been received in 
Washington. In the published letter the same 
facts were related with a fuller expression of 
opinion regarding causes and remedies. " Why 
should we not frankly and openly admit," wrote 
Dr. Eliot, " that, in 1865, as a nation we went 
too fast ? Under the united influence of patriot- 
ism and party spirit, of passion and philanthropy, 
we undertook the unstatesmanlike task, not only 
of giving freedom to four millions of slaves, 
which was right, but of transferring them at 
once into full possession of political control, 
without training or education for the immense 
responsibilities of their new existence, and on 
the presumption that their former masters would 
cheerfully consent to the new regime. Such a 
revolution in social life and in all industrial and 
financial interests never yet took place without 



THE NEGRO AND RECONSTRUCTION 291 



suffering and strife. That no worse consequences 
have resulted is a wonderful triumph of Ameri- 
can principles, and an equal proof of the general 
docility and tractableness of the race." 

Dr. Eliot believed that things would gradually 
mend. " With increasing intelligence and edu- 
cation/' he said, " the colored race will improve 
their condition. . . . New issues in local politics 
will arise and their influence will be sought. 
They represent the labor of the land, and this 
will gradually assert itself. . . . Above all, we 
must look to advancing education in the whole 
South for a permanent and full solution. . . . 
If the Constitution could be amended establishing 
an educated suffrage, we should have no reason 
to fear. In that direction our true safety should 
be found. . . . The subjection of the Southern 
States is not what we want, but their hearty con- 
currence in the great work of the nineteenth 
century, the permanent establishment of a grand 
republic in which freedom and law everywhere 
prevail. I think, therefore, that every good citi- 
zen who shares in these hopes should do his part, 
however humble and insignificant, to sustain the 
newly inaugurated President in the new policy 
which he has had the courageous wisdom to 
announce." 

Hayes's policy of conciliation was much criti- 
cised ; but, as Dr. Eliot prophesied, it eventually 
proved more effective than compulsion in the 



292 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

restoration of peace and harmony. When, in 
1879, there began that movement of industrious 
negroes northward to Kansas from the Southern 
States, the sense of insecurity and injustice which 
induced them to leave their homes in such large 
numbers was declared by some to be the practi- 
cal result of Hayes's pohcy of conciliation which 
gave to the South untrammeled control of their 
own section, and left the negroes unprotected. 
Dr. Eliot thought such was not the case, except 
as it had proved that " neither force nor kindness 
could be relied on to protect them (the negroes) 
from harm." 

Dr. Eliot had said of the blacks : " They re- 
present the labor of the land, and this will grad- 
ually assert itself ; " and to him General Sherman 
wrote : " The exodus of industrious negroes is a 
partial solution of the difficulty in the South. . . . 
It will force the local authorities to deal more 
justly and fairly by these poor people who labored 
several generations for their white masters, and 
who in the war guarded, protected, and main- 
tained the families when all the able-bodied fathers 
and brothers were off fighting for their continued 
enslavement." To Rev. James Freeman Clarke 
Dr. Eliot wrote, under date of April 21st : " We 
have known something of this movement for 
years past, and have been doing something from 
time to time; but the exodus of this month 
takes us all by surprise. It is only in want of 



THE NEGRO AND EECONSTRUCTION 29a 



Bible language to make it as imposing. . . . The 
course of President Hayes was right and wise ; 
in fact there was no alternative. It was a Divine 
opportunity given to the South, as to Pharaoh of 
old, and they have failed to improve it. . . . 

" The whole power of the nation cannot pro- 
tect the negroes in the practical fruits of liberty 
where they are, against the will of the dominant 
race ; and therefore if they have vigor and courage 
to take their salvation in their own hands by the 
providential path of seeking a promised land, both 
individuals and the nation at large must help 
them. I would not stimulate the exodus, . . . 
but we must provide for it." 

In April, 1879, these colored emigrants were 
indeed arriving in large numbers in St. Louis, 
on their way to Kansas, a State which from its 
associations probably embodied to them the senti- 
ment of freedom. While awaiting transportation, 
men, women, and children were crowded together 
in a small tenement building. The Western Sani- 
tary Commission was still in existence, and Dr. 
Eliot and Mr. Yeatman felt that something must 
be done "for humanity's sake," although both 
agreed that the exodus should not be stimulated. 
A large building was fitted up wherein for sev- 
eral months from two hundred and fifty to three 
hundred colored emigrants each day received tem- 
porary shelter and some assistance. Funds for 
this purpose came entirely without solicitation, to 



294 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

the amount of six thousand dollars. Among the 
contributors were many friends of Dr. Eliot in 
Boston who sympathized with the colored people 
thus endeavoring to escape from unendurable 
conditions. 

Dr. Eliot had declared it to be his opinion that 
the cause of the exodus on the part of the blacks 
was " a growing intelligence, a better compre- 
hension of their rights as freemen, an increased 
sensibility to familiar wrongs, and the hope of 
finding a free field of labor elsewhere." An 
agent was sent to Kansas by the Western Sani- 
tary Commission, to obtain information concern- 
ing the condition of colored immigrants there, 
and their motives in leaving the South. The tes- 
timony obtained from the negroes themselves, 
and others, was published in pamphlet form. 
They were reported by the Kansas people to be 
honest, industrious, sober, and self-supporting. 
The majority were intelligent, and could read and 
write. According to their own testimony, the 
causes of their coming were " mistreatment and 
swindling." " If they objected to their treatment 
they were liable to be taken out at night, beaten 
and perhaps killed." Stories of " killings " were 
frequent. Some of these immigrants came from 
what the Southern papers termed " the bull-dozed 
regions," having lost their faith in the protection 
of the Constitution and laws. Many of them had 
been intimidated, most had become discouraged. 



THE NEGRO AND RECONSTRUCTION 295 



Gradually the exodus ceased, as an organized 
movement ; for the South is the natural home of 
the colored race, which they only leave from com- 
pulsion or necessity. 

At this period, 1879, Dr. Eliot was very much 
concerned regarding the situation of affairs in 
the South. The time was approaching for the 
nomination of a presidential candidate, and he 
felt that much depended upon the choice of the 
right man. To his mind the most available per- 
son was his friend, General William T. Sherman. 
To General Sherman he therefore wrote, asking 
him whether in the coming presidential contest, 
if it " came to he recognized as a political neces- 
sity," he would accept the nomination if thrust 
upon him, as in his. Dr. Eliot's, opinion it was 
an " exigency that might arise." Although he, 
Dr. Eliot, did not approve of a military ruler as 
President when a civilian could be found to fill 
that position, he believed that in the coming 
election there " must be a single issue, the same 
as in 1860 : — Are we a nation or a confederacy ? 
Is the United States or each State supreme? 
Is secession one of the reserved rights ? " Gen- 
eral Sherman, Dr. Eliot thought, would make this 
issue " clear and decisive," since his record had 
been one of " active conciliation." Dr. Eliot con- 
sidered that Hayes had done well, but that his 
retirement was a foregone conclusion. 

" The trial of the next five years," he wrote, 



296 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



" will be very severe. The negro question is not 
settled. Loyalty is only a name in the South. . . . 
Quiet, firm control will hold or bring things 
right, and nothing else can. A party politician 
would ruin us, or a dough-face." 

General Sherman's reply is so noteworthy and 
so characteristic of the man, that it is herewith 
inserted. 

Hbadquartbks Army of the United States, 
Washington, D. C, August 3, 1879. 
Rev'd W. G. Eliot, 

St. Louis, Missouri : 
My dear Sir, — I cannot mistake the friendly and most 
honorable sentiment conveyed in your letter of July 31st, 
just received. The subject-matter has been so often broached 
to me, ever since I became notorious in the latter part of 
the Civil War, that my opinion and answer have become 
stale and stereotyped. The office of President of the 
United States has never had the least attraction to me. It 
was my fortune to be somewhat behind the curtain in Tay- 
lor's administration. I witnessed the fearful agonies and 
throes of that good and great man Lincoln, and saw General 
Grant, who never swerved in war, bend and twist and writhe 
under the appeals and intrigues from which there was no 
escape, so that I look upon the office as one beyond human 
endurance, each year being worse and worse. Man is mor- 
tal and human, and can no more withstand the appeals of 
charity, of distress, of family and friends as President than 
when in private life ; and such seems the nature of our peo- 
ple, that the moment one's friends find him in an exalted 
position, then they cease aU honest work and turn to him 
for honors and support. You may grant the ninety-nine, 
but refuse the hundredth you become a monster of ingrati- 
tude. I do not expect to live long, and will not disturb the 



THE NEGRO AND RECONSTRUCTION 297 



peace of the small remainder of my life by such hopes, 
fears, and disappointments. The country is full of men 
of average ability who seek the oJB&ce. Our salvation and 
hope as a nation must depend on the system, not the 
goodness or badness of the agent. In Hayes's position I 
would likely do pretty much as he does, — certainly no 
better. The country is full of his equals, and I propose to 
leave the office to them. In no event, and under no combi- 
nation of circumstances, will I allow the use of my name 
in' that connection. Believing fully that time will accom- 
plish all good things, I have little fear of the reaction of 
1879, which is nearly expended, so that the pendulum is now 
going back. 

Ever your friend, 

W. T. Sherman. 

In the summer of 1879 there were in St. Louis 
several meetings of the colored people to consider 
means of aiding the negro exodus. At one of 
these meetings there was read a letter from Fred- 
erick Douglass advising the negro to remain in 
the South, declaring that he would find his " ulti- 
mate advantage" where he had a monopoly of the 
labor, and would not be obliged, as in the North, 
to compete with foreigners. Time has vindicated 
the wisdom of Douglass's advice, which was then 
received with indignation by some of the colored 
people. In an article published in the October 
number of the "Atlantic Monthly," 1903, Booker 
T. Washington calls attention to the fact that in 
one year, out of a million emigrants, only a few 
thousands settled in the Southern States. Mr. 
Washington uses this as an argument in favor of 



298 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



industrial training for the negro in the South, 
since that region is " largely free from the re- 
strictive influence of the Northern trades unions/' 
and " such organizations will secure little hold in 
the South so long as the negro keeps abreast in 
intelligence and skill with the same class of peo- 
ple elsewhere." 

In 1863 Dr. EHot declared in an address that 
" at the South the respectabihty of labor and the 
desirableness of popular education " had never 
been conceded, and made " no part of the social 
system, of what might justly be called the South- 
ern civilization." At the close of the war, in 1865, 
he said : " Educated industrial classes are the liv- 
ing power which we want for our prosperity, and 
which for our safety we must have. If the South 
had had this, there would have been no rebellion ; 
slavery itself could not have driven them to so 
great madness if the masses of the people had 
been reasonably well informed." 

It is nearly forty years since these words were 
uttered. The pubhc school system has been es- 
tablished in the South, and from growing intel- 
ligence has resulted increased respect for labor. 
At the present time the "educated industrial 
classes " are the hope of the new civilization of 
the South. 



CHAPTER XII 



SOCIAL REFORM 



Wearied by the long strain of the Civil War 
period, and the labors incident to reorganization 
in the years immediately ensuing, Dr. Eliot was 
compelled to withdraw for a while from active 
duty, and in the spring of 1869 visited the Pacific 
coast. On his return in the fall he went abroad 
with his wife and younger children, and spent 
the winter in Rome. It was the last year of the 
temporal sovereignty of the Vatican, and was 
rendered more interesting by the meeting of the 
Ecumenical Council ; but diversion and rest did 
not entirely accomplish for an overworked man 
all that he had hoped in the direction of physi- 
cal recuperation. He returned to St. Louis in 
the early summer of 1870, and on the 1st of July 
recorded that he had written and copied his let- 
ter of resignation as pastor of the Church of the 
Messiah. Although never thereafter installed as 
minister of any parish, he was still devoted to his 
profession, and continued with unabated zeal his 
labors for the advancement of moral and social 
reform. In the interest of higher morality he had 
spoken from the pulpit for social purity and tern- 



300 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



perance. He now addressed the public through 
the medium o£ the press, advocating practical 
measures of reform. On his return from abroad 
he learned that a law had been passed by the 
Missouri Legislature whereby the city of St. 
Louis was permitted to "regulate" the so-called 
social evil, which thus received the sanction of 
law embodied specifically in a city ordinance. 
The violation of moral principle involved imme- 
diately aroused Dr. Eliot, but as was usual with 
him, before opposing any measure, he waited until 
he had thoroughly investigated the subject be- 
fore appealing to the pubHc through the press. 
In the " St. Louis Democrat " of February 25, 
1871, he protested against the further passage of 
laws which would commit St. Louis to a system 
that had failed everywhere else, until the com- 
munity had been permitted to express its will 
after discussion and a full exposition of facts. 
Although declaring that he himself was not pre- 
pared to enter upon such discussion, he went so 
far as to state that a " Contagious Diseases Law " 
had been passed by the English Parliament of 
1869, and that the effect produced upon the moral 
sense of the people by the promulgation of this 
edict had been intense. A general protest had 
arisen, especially from women. Both as a moral 
and a sanitary measure the law was likely to 
prove a failure. His own conclusion was that the 
"social evil," considered as a sin and crime, 



SOCIAL REFORM 



301 



should be treated like all other sins and crimes, 
to be " prohibited by law and prevented as far 
as possible by the conjoined action o£ legal and 
moral force." Faithfulness in this course would 
" reduce the evil to its narrowest limits." He be- 
lieved also that any law enacted should include 
all offenders. Distasteful to him as was this sub- 
ject, he continued to keep it before the public 
through the medium of the press. When in 
1876, two years after the repeal of the obnoxious 
law in Missouri, an attempt was made in the New 
York Legislature to pass a similar enactment, 
there was published in the " New York Evening 
Express" under date of March 7th a letter from 
him, in which he appealed to the editors of the 
paper to oppose the law, for the reason that it 
would " do no good practically and infinite harm 
morally." From his knowledge of the working of 
the system in Paris, Berlin, and all the leading 
cities of Europe, he knew that it did not prevent 
the consequences of wrong-doing, while it in- 
creased the extent of the evil, lowered the stand- 
ard of public morality, and brought into contempt 
the sacredness of the family relation. In this same 
letter is related the experience of St. Louis in the 
enactment, operation, and repeal of the social evil 
law which the Missouri Legislature had been 
" tricked into passing by the unobserved inser- 
tion of the word ' regulate ' in the city charter." 
" When the subject was understood, this law was 



302 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

repealed after four years' trial, by a vote in the 
Senate of three to one, and in the House of Ke- 
presentatives by a vote of ninety to one." 

In the " Christian Illustrated Weekly " of April 
8, 1876, was published an article stating that an 
attempt was making in the New York Legislature 
to introduce a bill licensing the social evil, that 
the experiment had been tried in St. Louis, and 
that Dr. T. M. Post of that city had been written 
to for information regarding results. In reply 
Dr. Post had referred the editors to Dr. Eliot, 
and thus written of him : " His work in secur- 
ing the repeal of our law has been untiring and 
heroic, and his agency, more than that of any 
other individual, has been effective in accompHsh- 
ing this result." A letter from Dr. Eliot was 
then published, wherein he reiterated with even 
added emphasis his former assertions regarding 
the evil effects of the license system, and its de- 
moralizing influence upon the police, the agents 
for enforcing its provisions. The following edi- 
torial comment was made on this letter : " To 
repeat an experiment which the experience of the 
past has proved to be as disastrous to morals as 
it is dishonorable to Christian civilization, would 
be both a blunder and a crime. To put upon our 
own escutcheon a stain which Missouri has with 
much labor removed from her own, would be 
contrary alike to honor and to common sense. 
... If our legislature, in the face of this chapter 



SOCIAL REFORM 



303 



of experience^ undertake to import the moral 
regimen of Paris into the cities of New York, 
they may rest assured that they will hear from the 
consciences of their own constituencies afterward, 
if they do not before." 

Even as late as 1877 Dr. Eliot learned that a 
prominent member of the Missouri Legislature 
favored a reenactment of the social evil law, that 
he had declared that the plans for its renewal 
were already matured, and that it would be 
" sprung upon the community in such a manner 
as to preclude all opposition." Against any such 
clandestine attempt to reenact a law which had 
been repealed by an overwhelming majority, he 
openly protested in an argument published in 
the " Globe-Democrat " of January 27, 1877. He 
was also instrumental in thwartina- the enactment 
of these same " regulation " laws in Chicago and 
Cleveland. 

In 1876 Dr. EHot had written : " From New 
York I hear that the social evil movement is 
defeated for the present, and this means perma- 
nently, for its only chance is to take people un- 
awares. At Washington city the same effect is 
threatening, but will be headed off. . . . 

" On the whole, that hardest of all my work 
has been the best. One city after another has 
been prevented from beginning the ' Eegulation ' 
by our repeal of it. Meanwhile in England and 
all over the continent of Europe moral sentiment 



304 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

is awakening, and as true information spreads, 
the iniquity is unveiled, so that it will soon be 
impossible for such a barbarism to begin in Amer- 
ica. To have secured such a result by two years' 
painful work is enough to reconcile me to any 
degree of failure in whatever other direction." 

In June, 1877, the " regulation " system was 
again advocated by the grand jury in St. Louis, 
and Dr. Eliot, in the "Globe-Democrat" of June 
29th, published a severe arraignment of the jury, 
in which he proved that the evils complained of 
by that body were due to other causes than the 
repeal of the social evil law. " I sincerely hope," 
he wrote in his letter, " that we shall not be com- 
pelled to go through another public discussion 
such as we had four years ago, the result of 
which was the repeal of the ' evil law ; ' but if 
the advocates of legaHzing vice insist upon it, 
the friends of Christian morality and household 
purity must ^ stand to their guns,' and fight every 
inch of the ground with such strength as God and 
a good cause may give them." As a marginal 
comment he wrote on a copy of this letter : " I 
am sorry to be again at this work, but the Devil 
shall not win if I can help it." 

When in 1883 Cleveland proposed to " regu- 
late the social evil," the ladies of that city held 
a mass meeting of remonstrance, and a letter ad- 
dressed to them by Dr. Eliot was published. In 
his account of the two years' struggle for the 



SOCIAL REFORM 



305 



repeal of the law in St. Louis, he wrote that dur- 
ing that time " thousands of tracts were scattered 
through the State, and bushels of documents 
gathered from European cities/' which statement 
gives some idea of his own labors for social purity. 
And yet these labors, if harassing and unpleasant, 
were compressed into a short period as compared 
with his lifelong advocacy of the temperance 
cause, maintained with increasing earnestness in 
his declining years. Only those who have them- 
selves been engaged in such work are aware of 
the discouragements constantly encountered. 

For years he hoped and labored for the enact- 
ment of restrictive or prohibitory legislation regu- 
lating the manufacture and sale of liquor, not only 
in Missouri but throughout the United States, and 
he corresponded with legislators on the subject. 
His hope lay not in the wealthy classes, nor in 
the ignorant and uneducated, but in the so-called 
"middle classes," who more quickly respond to such 
appeals. His experience among the poor early 
convinced him that intemperance is the principal 
cause of poverty and crime. In a lay sermon " 
on "Temperance," published in 1882, he declared 
that there were three methods by which the tem- 
perance cause could be advanced. These were : 
total abstinence ; personal influence upon others 
leading them to the same ; and the advocacy of 
prohibitory or restrictive legislation. Of total 
abstinence he said : " It is the only assured course 



306 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



of safety for ourselves and our families. I do 
not care how strong we may be ; ... we are not 
absolutely safe while the use of intoxicants as a 
beverage continues. I have seen all safeguards 
and barriers and resolutions and bonds give way, 
time and time again. I can show you graves 
which neither religion, nor morality, nor self- 
interest, nor self-respect, nor love of kindred, 
could prevent from being the drunkard's resting- 
place. I can show you this day men of intelli- 
gence, of good sense, of extended influence, of 
wealth, living in homes of refinement ; in posi- 
tions of trust and honor, on the bench, at the 
bar, in the command of armies, in the council 
chamber, ... in the pulpit itseK, ... in the 
halls of Congress, in the National Cabinet, and 
in the Presidential Mansion — in all places of 
honor and usefulness have we seen men walking 
with unsteady steps, speaking with ill-considered 
words, and with all the marks of unmanliness 
that disgrace the foolish ones who put an enemy 
in their mouths to steal away their brains. And 
yet not one of them all but could remember the 
time when he was ' perfectly safe,' ' quite able to 
control himself.' " 

As to the effect of personal influence upon 
others in advancing the cause of temperance. 
Dr. Eliot could well speak from experience. He 
had always labored persistently to reclaim any 
victim of the habit of drink who came within his 



SOCIAL REFORM 



307 



influence, either as a member of his congregation 
or otherwise. " My God ! " he once exclaimed, 
" what an infatuation it is ! " The following 
incident in the life of Henry Giles, a somewhat 
famous hunchback orator, author, and divine, is 
related by his biographer, Rev. A, J. Rich. It 
exemplifies Dr. Eliot's method of action in deal- 
ing with the tempted. On Mr. Giles's way to St. 
Louis, where he was to lecture at Dr. Ehot's in- 
stance, he stopped in Chicago, and was so well 
entertained by his friends that he appeared on 
the lecture platform in a state of undue exhila- 
ration. The news traveled quickly to St. Louis. 
Saturday afternoon Mr. Giles appeared at the 
door of Mr. Eliot's study. His first words were : 
" Well, I am here. I suppose you have heard all 
about it." "Yes," said Mr. Eliot, taking his 
hand, " I am sorry to say that I have read all 
about my friend's trouble. I have weighed the 
matter too ; but you are to lecture on Tuesday 
evening, and preach for me to-morrow." In a 
voice trembling with emotion, Mr. Giles replied : 
" Eliot, you have saved me. I will obey orders." 
"But," said his friend, "on this condition, that 
you are not to stop at the hotel. I have provided 
entertainment for you at a friend's house." Mr. 
Giles preached next day to a crowded church, 
and Dr. Eliot declared in his account of the ser- 
mon that he never heard from mortal lips such a 
prayer as under the influence of strong feeling 



308 



WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



was uttered by the repentant man that morning 
in the pulpit of the Unitarian Church. Tuesday 
evening he lectured to a large audience, and this 
is the significant and gratifying fact — the influ- 
ence thus exerted over a weak and tempted man 
was lasting. For over twenty years he continued 
to lecture all over the country, yet never again did 
he fall into the same error that had caused his 
downfall in Chicago. 

In the " lay sermon " already considered, Dr. 
EHot had appealed to the individual judgment 
and conscience, advising the practice of total 
abstinence, and the influencing others in the 
same direction. In a second "lay sermon," he 
discussed temperance legislation both as regarded 
the influence of law on the community, and the 
social and economic aspects of license and pro- 
hibition. His own desire was for prohibition and 
the closing of the saloon, and this he advocated 
with logic and fact ; yet he was ready to wel- 
come any measure that would restrict the sale of 
Hquor as a beverage. In answer to the argument 
that men cannot be legislated into 7norality, he 
agreed that they must be elevated in character 
so as to control themselves, but that legislation 
had its rightful place in the work of reform. 
" The influence of law as an educator," he said, 
" is very great, and cannot be safely disregarded. 
... To a large class in every community, what 
is legal passes for right, or at least not blame- 



SOCIAL REFORM 



309 



worthy. . . . Let the sanction of law be with- 
drawn from the sale of intoxicating drinks as a 
beverage, let the drinking saloon thereby become 
an illegal instead of a licensed institution, and 
discredit would be thrown upon the habits of 
drinking. ... A long step in the right direction 
would have been taken by putting the laws of 
morahty and the laws of the land on the same 
side." 

Dr. Eliot did not consider it right to expose 
young men to temptation and then hold them 
morally responsible for the evil result. " The 
dram-shops and saloons and pleasure gardens," 
he declared, " with all their allurements of stu- 
diously devised temptations, pressing on every 
side, night and day, week day and Sunday, create 
an atmosphere of contagion from which the 
healthiest can hardly escape. For those who have 
already acquired a taste for intoxicants or have 
inherited it, and for those who have no fixed 
moral or religious principles to fall back upon — 
that is to say, for the majority of hard-working 
men and half -educated young men — escape is 
next to impossible. . . . How much ' moral 
suasion ' under such circumstances . . . will be 
needed to secure the safety of the tempted ? " 

In his treatment of the social and economic 
aspects of the hquor question, he appealed to 
statistics which he had gathered, endeavoring to 
show that the income derived in St. Louis from 



310 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



the licensing of saloons defrayed but a very 
small portion of the expense to the city and com- 
munity from the disorder, crime, sickness, and 
pauperism resulting from intemperance. In addi- 
tion to the estimated immense sum expended for 
liquor annually in the city, amounting to ten 
times what was contributed for the support of 
all the public and private schools, several milhons 
of internal revenue tax went out of the State 
each year. Regarding the legality of the restric- 
tion or prohibition of the sale of Hquor, he 
maintained that by the decision of the Supreme 
Court of Missouri such sale was not a right, but 
a privilege, which could be restricted or pro- 
hibited. 

In 1882 Dr. Eliot published in pamphlet form 
the two " lay sermons " on temperance, and sent 
a large number of copies to prominent individ- 
uals, hoping for aid and encouragement in effect- 
ing the desired legislation. Apparently no imme- 
diate or important result followed. A prominent 
church dignitary, from whom he had expected 
aid, excused himseK from cooperation and wrote : 
" The facts in your appeal are very startling, 
but the difficulty is in applying a remedy." This 
gentleman expressed the opinion that efforts 
should be made to enforce the present laws, but 
this was already a part of Dr. Eliot's work. An 
unlicensed saloon was operated on the same block 
on which stood one of the Washington University 



SOCIAL REFORM 



311 



buildings, and he brought suit against the pro- 
prietors. Unfortunately there is no strong pub- 
lic sentiment against selling liquor without a 
license, the cry of persecution is easily raised, 
and juries fail to convict. This was the result of 
the prosecution referred to, although Dr. Eliot 
tried every available legal remedy. Eventually a 
Hcense was secured by erecting a tenement build- 
ing on ground adjacent to the saloon, and filling 
it with "householders," who made a majority of 
persons resident on the block in its favor. Thus 
easily was the true spirit and meaning of the law 
evaded. Dr. Eliot expected much from the exer- 
cise of the franchise by women, believing as he 
did that in municipal elections they would vote 
against the saloon. 

Whether in jest or earnest, it was at one time 
suggested that Dr. Eliot should be appointed a 
police commissioner of St. Louis. This called 
forth, in one of the daily papers, the following 
humorous editorial comment, which is an index 
of his reputation as an energetic reformer : — 

" Dr. Eliot may not desire to be police com- 
missioner, and the suggestion of his name may 
be meant as a joke, but we sincerely wish the 
joke to become a reality. Forty-eight hours af- 
ter Dr. Eliot assumed the reins of the police 
department there would be no gambling houses 
in St. Louis. Dr. Eliot would be no joke in the 
police board, but a sensible, strong reahty. 



312 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



Governor Phelps could do no better thing than 
to appoint him." 

There exists in manuscript form, as written by 
Dr. Eliot, an " Appeal " addressed to the mem- 
bers of the Senate and House of Representatives 
of Missouri, asking that prohibition, as a con- 
stitutional amendment, be submitted to the vote 
of the people at the next general election. This 
petition, written toward the close of his Hf e, was 
probably never forwarded. His views regarding 
the evils of intemperance had been confirmed 
by large personal experience. " I am pleading," 
he declared in the second of his " lay sermons," 
" as in a case of life and death, and with all the 
earnestness of which I am capable ; for the facts, 
the social unwritten statistics of intemperance, 
as they have directly come before me, in an 
active life of full fifty years, justify me in so 
doing." 

To women Dr. Eliot believed in giving the 
largest opportunities of education and usefulness. 
In an address delivered in 1871 on " Woman's 
Future in America and the Education needed to 
prepare her for it," he especially emphasized the 
desirability of a sound practical education carried 
to the highest practical point. This he consid- 
ered equally necessary for woman in her natural 
or providential sphere of the home ; in her im- 
portant work as an educator of the young ; in 
her social and poKtical relations in America ; and 



SOCIAL REFORM 



313 



in the special work confined to a few. He was 
naturally conservative, and believed that the 
great majority of women would prefer to remain 
in " the quiet discharge of household duties," 
but that there was a large field of educational 
work in which they excelled, and it was of the 
utmost importance they should be fitted for 
the proper performance of its requirements. To 
the few fitted for and desiring special work, 
special opportunities for preparation should be 
given. 

In considering the question of woman's social 
and political relations in America, he asked: 
" Shall woman be included in the republican 
idea as having the full rights of equal citizen- 
ship ? " and answered the question in the affirm- 
ative. He believed that the " logic of republi- 
canism, inevitable and irresistible, would solve 
the problem as it had the problem of universal 
suffrage and of the freedom of the slave," and 
that woman should have power ^ the only prin- 
ciple which society permanently respects, rather 
than merely the protection which had always 
been vouchsafed her. He did not regard the 
extension of suffrage to women as a privilege 
or concession of a right, but as a duty to be 
imposed. There was no cause for surprise that 
women did not wish for it as if it were an enjoy- 
ment or a luxury, since few intelligent men so 
regarded it. Those only desire it who see its 



314 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



great uses, and women must vote as men do, to 
discharge a moral and social responsibility from 
which they could not escape when once the right 
to vote was given them. As a preparation for 
these extended rights of citizenship which should 
be conferred upon women, he advocated more 
of a common-sense practical business education 
than heretofore, that they might learn to take 
care of their own property and have a better un- 
derstanding of the new responsibilities imposed. 
For both men and women, as necessary to the ex- 
ercise of the franchise, he would have preferred 
an educational qualification. In his early resi- 
dence in Missouri he had considered such restric- 
tion of suffrage as a reform to be effected, but 
concluded it would be impossible to obtain the 
necessary legislation. 

Of legislative measures Dr. Eliot was always a 
close observer, especially in the interest of the 
weaker classes, whom he consistently strove to 
benefit and protect. In 1875 there was intro- 
duced into the Missouri Legislature an amend- 
ment to a leasing contract made by the State 
two years previously with certain lessees of the 
labor of the Jefferson City penitentiary. By this 
amendment, the lessees were authorized to work 
gangs of convicts in any part of the State where 
they could find employment for them, within a 
mile of any city or town, provided the sanc- 
tion of the local authorities could be obtained. 



SOCIAL REFORM 



315 



This measure was opposed by Senator James J. 
McGinniss, who made a minority report on con- 
ditions in the penitentiary, incidentally showing 
that under the leasing system the convicts had 
not been properly fed and clothed, and insub- 
ordination had resulted. 

To Mr. McGinniss Dr. Eliot, then vice-presi- 
dent of the National Prison Association, ad- 
dressed an open letter on the " Leasing System," 
which was published in the " St. Louis Globe " 
of February 25, 1875. In this letter he stated 
that he had made prison discipline a careful 
study since he left college in 1830, forty-five 
years previously ; that for many years he spent 
several hours each week with prisoners in jails 
and prisons, and that at one time he "knew 
quite as much of human nature inside the walls 
as outside." He had also kept himself familiar 
with the various plans and systems both in this 
country and Europe. The treatment of the guilty 
he declared to be the " one grand problem of 
society," and that when it was successfully solved 
the " greatest triumph of civilization would have 
been gained." 

Dr. EKot regarded the leasing system as the 
worst of all systems in vogue among civilized na- 
tions, if the real objects of prison discipline and 
penal jurisprudence are taken into consideration. 
These objects are the protection of society and 
the reformation of the criminal; and although 



316 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



the latter object is secondary, it is the most effec- 
tive and the only permanently effectual means 
for the attainment of the former. The lessee has 
no interest in the reformation of the criminal, his 
principal or only object being to make money 
through a " stern and hard system of compulsory 
labor, in which brute force is the only acknow- 
ledged master." Dr. Eliot thought that even the 
most degraded convicts resented being sold or 
leased out as if they were cattle to men whose 
chief aim was to make money out of their mis- 
fortunes or crimes. He considered that the true 
secret of prison discipline was to treat the pris- 
oners like human beings, and while imposing 
strict disciplinary rules, to observe justice and to 
govern them by the same motives which appeal 
to other men. As a result of such treatment 
the influence of prison life would be greatly 
improved, and men would no longer leave the 
prison " full of vindictive hatred, morally and in- 
tellectually educated for new and greater crimes." 
He agreed with modern reformers, that convicts 
should be rewarded for diligence and good be- 
havior by giving them some of the fruits of their 
earnings. He expressed the opinion that ^^the 
average of personal character in the prison is 
not so much below that of the surrounding 
world as generally supposed," and with a fair 
chance a large part of the convicts could be 
reclaimed. 



SOCIAL REFORM 317 

He sent a copy of this article with an ac- 
companying letter to Governor Hardin. The 
Amendment " passed the Missouri Legislature 
by a large majority, but was fortunately vetoed 
by the governor, on the ground that it was 
" contrary to public sense, cruel and inhuman to 
the convicts," and for other reasons. 

Dr. EKot felt very deeply the responsibility of 
the higher classes of society towards the lower. 
In reporting in 1865 the wretched condition of 
the prison system of St. Louis, he thus closed his 
report: "Of one thing be sure. God does not 
forget those who are ' sick and in prison,' and the 
laws of social life will not be repealed in our be- 
half. These lower depths of crime and suffering 
may seem too far down for our selfish humanity 
to reach. We may flatter ourselves that it is 
none of our concern, but we cannot so wash our 
hands of it. . . . The lowest stratum of society 
affects the one immediately above it, and the in- 
fluence is carried up to the top. Let the mouth 
of the common sewers become choked two miles 
from your pleasant homes, and the polluted air is 
secretly diffused and the evil extends itself until 
the pale cheeks and faiHng breath of your own 
dear children prove the presence of a poisoned 
atmosphere for which you cannot account. And 
so does the moral poison become diffused, work- 
ing its way upward through unobserved chan- 
nels, by all the diversified relations of social life, 



318 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



until our own homes feel the contagion, and our 
young men are stricken down. Every passing day 
gives proof of it. 

" The frightful increase of crime fills our 
hearts with sadness, and we tremble for the fu- 
ture. The community is thoroughly awake to the 
material interests of commerce, manufactures, and 
trade ; let it also awaken to the social and moral 
interests upon which all real prosperity depends. 
The prevention of evil belongs to our firesides 
and schools. The work of reformation — to raise 
the fallen, to redeem the lost — is more dif&cult 
and less attractive, but for our own social salva- 
tion it must be done. Let us take hold of it, at 
whatever cost, with a vigorous hand." 

For the prevention of pauperism and crime. 
Dr. EHot advocated not only temperance mea- 
sures, but education, which must be compulsory 
if rendered necessary by the indifference or negh- 
gence of parents, — and also the cultivation of 
habits of industry. He always deprecated the 
giving of relief to able-bodied men and women 
without some equivalent in services rendered, 
beheving that such aid was permanently demor- 
alizing. This principle was not as universally 
recognized in his day as at present. 

Dr. Eliot was interested in all measures for 
material as well as moral improvement in the 
community. In 1871 he urged through the press 
the building of the new Merchants' Exchange, 



SOCIAL REFORM 



319 



and when the building was completed he was 
present at the dedication exercises and made the 
opening prayer. He performed the same office 
at the meeting of the Southern Pacific Railroad 
Convention in 1875, ten years after the close 
of the Civil War, On this occasion there were 
seated on the platform the quasi ex-President 
Jefferson Davis, General Joseph Johnston, and 
General P. T. Beauregard, with General Sherman 
and many other distinguished men. In his prayer 
Dr. Eliot said : " Almighty and most merciful 
God, ... we have come here in the interest of 
peace and of national union. Wilt thou guide 
our minds to wisdom of counsel ; wilt thou fill 
our hearts with fairness and with justice, and 
with brotherly love. May there be no place for 
discord, may no angry word be spoken. May we 
leave behind us narrow selfishness and sectional 
feeling, remembering that we are here as citizens 
of the same great country to work together for 
our common good. 0 God, wilt thou bind us 
together more and more closely, not only by the 
bonds of iron, but by the bonds of fraternal love. 
Thou hast taught us by thy Word that we are 
members one of another. By sore experience 
we have learned that one member cannot suffer 
without any suffering with it. We can neither 
suffer nor rejoice alone. Wilt thou therefore teach 
us to live according to the great law of Christian 
rectitude, not only individually, but as represent- 



320 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

ing different communities and cities. . . . We 
pray for thy blessing upon our beloved country 
which thou hast so greatly distinguished. May 
this people become free indeed by escaping from 
the bondage of sin, by escaping from the wicked- 
ness of strife, and to thy name be the glory and 
the praise forever through Jesus Christ our Lord." 

In November, 1884, on the completion of his 
fifty years of residence in St. Louis, a letter 
signed by Wayman Crow and thirty-three other 
gentlemen was addressed to Dr. EHot, tendering 
him a public reception in honor of his " very 
early interest in the moral and intellectual pro- 
gress of the city during its formative period, 
an interest constantly and uninterruptedly main- 
tained," and manifested by " earnest, constant, ac- 
tive personal identification and assistance," which 
had been " a widespread, beneficent, and perma- 
nent influence." To quote from the letter : " That 
influence has been in this city as broad as human- 
ity itself, and has always tended to the placing 
of the religious, moral, and social life of the city 
upon a higher plane. . . . We recognize in it a 
conspicuous example of the power which may be 
exerted by the individual in civic life, and of 
what may be accomplished in one generation by 
steady and persistent effort in the pursuit of 
honorable purposes consecrated by Christian 
faith." 

While deeply appreciative of the regard which 



SOCIAL REFORM 



321 



had prompted the suggestion contained in this 
communication, Dr. EHot felt compelled to de- 
cline the proffered compliment, stating that he 
did so " from a clear sense of duty." He once 
wrote : " I hear men complain that public service 
is not paid for even in thanks. The balance is 
always the other way. Every man receives more 
than he gives. Every man is a debtor to all men.'' 
And on this occasion in his letter of acknowledg- 
ment he wrote : " In my judgment the best citizen, 
who devotes himself most earnestly to the public 
service, receives from the community he serves far 
more than he can give." He also declared that 
in much that he had done or attempted to do he 
had simply been the agent of generous men who 
had hidden themselves in their work, and to whom 
the praise of his seeming success really belonged. 
Much of " the work intrusted " to him was still 
"incomplete." 

He had indeed been the agent of generous men, 
to whom a later generation owes a debt of grati- 
tude. They responded to his appeals and sus- 
tained him in every movement for the public 
good. Their aid had been freely given because 
of their faith in the wisdom of his undertakings. 
" Dr. Eliot's executive power was rare," said his 
friend Dr. John Heywood, " but still greater and 
rarer was his power to inspire and energize. He 
could breathe Hfe into an organized body. The 
spirit of the living creature must be as the pro- 



322 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

pliet tells us and experience shows, ' in the wheels 
also ; ' and to inbreathe that spirit is, under God, 
the AU-inspirer, the prerogative and function of 
consecrated genius. Dr. Eliot had the genius for 
work, noble, humane, divine work. He had ex- 
traordinary power of will, and that will was sur- 
rendered reverently and unreservedly to the will 
of God. Hence his marvelous capacity of work 
and his power of inspiring others to work." 

Dr. Heywood believed that action and thought 
were not incompatible, and objected to the dic- 
tum, " A man of action rather than of thought, 
a doer rather than a thinker," as applied to Dr. 
Eliot. " A very fine thinker," he said, " was Dr. 
Eliot ; able to grasp and solve profound problems, 
and who, if he had made literature his profession, 
would have stood high on its rolls. Merchants 
of St. Louis, recognizing the sagacity, foresight, 
and broad wisdom which led them not infre- 
quently to seek and accept Dr. Eliot's advice, 
were wont to say that had he given himself to 
mercantile affairs he would have become one of 
the first merchants of the land. . . . The min- 
istry was his vocation — no avocation for the 
occupancy of leisure hours, but his vocation to 
which, under his dominating ideas of steward- 
ship and consecration, he gave himself unreserv- 
edly, putting his thoughts into earnest sermons, 
into noble characters, into grand institutions. 
And what elaborate volumes give better or finer 



SOCIAL REFORM 323 

expressions of broad and profound thought, than 
great institutions coming into being at the 
call of a far-seeingj deep-thinking mind, and 
remaining a perpetual memorial of the creative 
thinker." 



CHAPTER XIII 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 

When in 1834 William Eliot left the older set- 
tlements of the East to make his future home in 
the West, he was conscious that for a time at 
least he, like other pioneers, must leave behind 
him the world of books and intellectual pursuits. 
This deprivation he accepted as one of the needful 
sacrifices of his vocation. That there were times, 
especially in the early years of his ministry in 
St. Louis, when he felt it very deeply, is evident 
from his letters to his friend Rev. James Freeman 
Clarke. In 1836 he wrote to Mr. Clarke, then 
visiting Boston, requesting him to procure for 
him a copy of " Sartor Resartus," of which he 
had read a review, and of Wordsworth's works 
including " Yarrow Revisited," declaring that he 
must have those books whatever they cost, espe- 
cially Wordsworth, for which his soul had " pined 
all the year." 

When James Freeman Clarke started in Louis- 
ville a Western Unitarian periodical, of which he 
was editor, Mr. Eliot was very desirous of assist- 
ing his friend both by contributing articles to 
the magazine and obtaining subscribers. The 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 325 



former task he found difficult. "I shall get a 
good many subscribers at Alton/' he wrote, " but 
this soliciting marrow from a shriveled brain 
makes my heart ache to think of it. However, we 
must put on courage and strength and do our 
best." In a succeeding letter Mr. EKot inclosed 
a cheque for fifty dollars with a list of names, in- 
forming Mr. Clarke in a postscript that the same 
fifty dollars was a wedding fee for which he rode 
thirty miles. 

After leaving the divinity school and entering 
upon the active work of the ministry, with, as he 
said, " a Hfe broken into fragments by the cares 
and occupations unavoidable in a new community 
during the revolutionary days of progress," Wil- 
Ham Eliot had little time for intellectual pursuits 
apart from practical objects. His record of ac- 
complishment lies more in what he planned and 
executed than in his written works, which are 
necessarily few in number. Most of the books 
published by him were compilations of sermons 
or lectures. Such was his " Doctrines of Chris- 
tianity" issued by the American Unitarian Asso- 
ciation, with the statement that they were " short, 
simple, clear expositions of Christian doctrine, 
breathing a spirit of enlarged charity and devout 
reverence for the Sacred Scriptures." This book 
had a large circulation. The " Lectures to Young 
Men " and the " Lectures to Young Women " had 
been delivered as evening discourses in the Church 



326 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



of the Messiah to crowded audiences in the 
winter of 1852-53. The latter work was altered 
and revised by Dr. Eliot, and republished under 
the title of " Home Life and Influence " in 1880. 
The writing of this book was to him a labor of 
love. Although an advocate of the higher edu- 
cation of women, he attached especial importance 
to their " home life and influence." " I well re- 
member/' said a Mary Institute graduate, " that 
Dr. EHot, in addressing the pupils of the school, 
once told us that we must remember we came to 
^ the Mary ' for three purposes. These were, first, 
the formation of womanly character ; secondly, the 
acquirement of ladylike deportment ; and thirdly, 
inteUectual improvement." We were all much 
impressed by the Doctor's remarks," continued 
the young lady, "because he placed womanly 
character and ladylike deportment before intel- 
lectual improvement." 

The little book entitled " The Discipline of 
Sorrow" was written and published in 1855, a 
few months after the death of Dr. Ehot's eldest 
daughter Mary, to whom he was tenderly at- 
tached. Owing to the lack of school facilities in 
St. Louis at that time, Mary Eliot had been her 
father's pupil and companion, spending several 
hours every day in his study with her books. 
Reticent as he was in the expression of his deep- 
est personal emotions, in " The Discipline of Sor- 
row " Dr. EHot voiced a grief " common to all 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 327 



who mourn." In the preface of this book he ex- 
pressed the hope that those "upon whom the 
heavier burden had been laid/' and who did not 
seek " diversion from grief, but the power of 
Christian endurance," would recognize in his 
words their own individual experience, and be 
assisted in obtaining the strength they personally 
needed. The best preparation for sorrow Dr. 
Eliot found in a life of purity and Christian faith, 
devoted to the performance of duty ; the com- 
pensation of its discipline in perfected hiunan 
nature and enlarged spiritual life. 

Dr. Eliot's sermons were earnest and impres- 
sive, and characterized by simplicity of diction. 
Eegarding Christ as the exemplar of the perfect 
life, he made him and his teachings the subject of 
frequent discourse. His tone and manner added 
impressiveness to the message he delivered. One 
of his oldest and warmest personal friends thus 
wrote after Dr. Eliot's death of his preaching : 
" As a teacher, — a moral and religious teacher, 
— who, addressing himself to his congregation, 
warns them of the sins that most easily beset 
them, and admonishes them of the sacred obliga- 
tions of duty in any crisis, he was of almost un- 
exampled power. His earnest words went to the 
hearts of his hearers, for they carried the con- 
viction of his own sincerity, and were enforced 
by the most lofty morality. He was eminently 
distinguished by practical common sense, and 



328 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



beKeving as he did that it never was, never could 
be, expedient to palter with conscience, he seldom 
failed to command the assent of those whom he 
addressed. ... In the pulpit he sought to con- 
vince and persuade, but he never attempted — I 
should say never descended to, an oratorical flight 
in aid of a demonstration of moral duty. For 
awakening the attention of the careless, for rous- 
ing the conscience of the selfish, and for teach- 
ing all the supreme obligations of duty, he had 
few equals. But it was the daily beauty of his 
life which chiefly influenced those to whom he 
spoke." 

Dr. Hey wood very truly said of Dr. Eliot that 
his mind was quick to discern and firm to hold 
essential fundamental principles. In all his writ- 
ings the presence of this underlying basis of 
principle and conviction is manifest, and in his 
sermons vital truths are reiterated and enforced 
in their varied application. Conservative he was, 
by nature and training, as might be expected of 
one educated under the influence of Channing 
and other apostles of the Unitarian denomination ; 
yet his conservatism was based on reverent faith, 
and bore no relation to dogmatism. His mind 
was constructive rather than destructive, cherish- 
ing all that was sacred and memorable in the past, 
as a priceless legacy, a repository of truth, even 
though commingled with error. In his student 
days he was devoted to metaphysical studies, and 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 329 



never underestimated the value of speculative 
thought, for which J to his regret, he had later 
little time. Like Martineau, for whom personally, 
and for whose " conservative radicalism " as he 
termed it, he had great respect, he deemed im- 
possible any conflict between scientific and reli- 
gious truth, and, as already stated, desired for 
Washington University the motto, "Truth for 
truth's sake," " Veritas pro veritate." Of Mar- 
tineau he said : " He has the essence and strength 
of the most steadfast faith, the freedom of the 
largest philosophy." Martineau led the philo- 
sophic religious thought of his day, preaching to 
a choice audience of the thoughtful and learned, 
and could teach abstract spiritual truth, to which, 
in an active ministry, it behooved Dr. Eliot to 
give concrete expression through the life and ex- 
ample of Christ. 

When in 1870, after a continued pastorate of 
thirty-six years. Dr. Eliot retired from the pulpit 
of the Church of the Messiah, it was because he 
realized that his strength was no longer adequate 
to its duties. Although he did not leave the 
Christian ministry, he regarded with keen regret 
his retirement from its active work, and appar- 
ently ever afterwards felt that something was 
gone from his life. In the draft of an anniver- 
sary sermon prepared for the meeting of the 
National Unitarian Association in 1870 appears 
a statement afterwards suppressed in the copy, 



330 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

which indicates his state of mind at that time. 
He wrote : "I am here not even as the pastor 
of a church, for by my own act that relation has 
ceased, and the pulpit of the Church of the Mes- 
siah in St. Louis is waiting for an occupant. I 
say it with feelings of profoundest regret, for 
the work had become too great for me to do, and 
stronger and abler men must have place to do 
it. But in laying down that office held through 
thirty-six years of earnest endeavor, under cir- 
cumstances of difficulty and trial which few men 
know, I have taken up a cross the weight of 
which was greater than I had thought, and my 
heart fails within me to bear it. Dearer to me 
than life itself is the precious ministry of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. Most sacred of all commands 
is his word, ' Feed my sheep.' Higher than all 
worldly honor is the privilege of speaking in 
Christ's stead, persuading men to be reconciled 
to God. Only for a season therefore, and under 
providential necessity, have I left the work, and 
in some humbler way shall hope to resume it 
again." 

In a sermon on " The Inspiration and Work 
of the Christian Ministry," pubhshed ten years 
later, in 1880, Dr. EHot presented a very high 
ideal of a minister's vocation. Taking as his 
theme the conversion of Saul, he asserted that 
a Hke inspiration to that received by him, fill- 
ing the heart with a pervading and controlling 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 331 



purpose of self -consecration for truth and good- 
ness, was still needful, and without it the most 
eloquent preaching of the most stately pulpit was 
of little effect. Dr. Eliot attributed the conver- 
sion of Saul to the memory of the " patience 
and sublime courage " of the martyred Stephen, 
the recollection arousing his conscience until " the 
divine elements of his nature overcame the sel- 
fish and carnal." Such a change need not be, 
usually is not, sudden or violent. 

Skepticism and agnosticism, Dr. EKot thought, 
had no place in the pulpit, since faith in the liv- 
ing and ever-present God, in the human soul 
and its personal immortaHty, in universal brother- 
hood, in the infinite difference between right 
and wrong, " in a word, faith in Christian truth, 
which embraces all spiritual truth, from whatever 
source it may come, and in the life of Jesus as 
the embodiment of the truths he taught, . . . 
this faith ... is the needful inspiration of the 
gospel ministry." 

Of such faith. Dr. Eliot declared, " the direct 
and necessary consequence " was seK-consecration 
to the work given to the minister to do. " Self- 
consecration, the grandest word in the English 
language," he exclaimed, " the key to all hero- 
ism, the first condition of all great attainment 
whether in art or knowledge or philanthropy or 
spiritual life ; leading to self-denial and self-sac- 
rifice, but carrying us far beyond them by making 



332 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



the will of God our will." Self-consecration was 
always an essential principle in Dr. Eliot's creed, 
and he inculcated it by precept and example. 

In answer to the question, " How shall the 
gospel be declared ? " Dr. Eliot indicated three 
methods : " By direct precept, whatever can 
make the beauty and excellence of Christ's life 
and his doctrines known ; by regard for the in- 
stitutions of Christianity ; by lives of righteous- 
ness, piu?ity, self-denial, and active usefulness." 

Christ's life and teachings were, we know, a 
frequent subject of discourse with Dr. Ehot. To 
the institutions of Christianity, baptism and the 
Lord's Supper, he attached especial importance, 
not " from superstitious regard," but as a " sym- 
bol of faith," the " time-honored bond of Chris- 
tian brotherhood." His manner on such occa- 
sions was unusually impressive and reverential, 
as if he were conscious of the divine presence. 
He considered the communion table the centre 
of the religious life of a church. 

Above all else. Dr. Eliot regarded the righteous 
life of the minister as the most potent influence 
for good among his people. " This is the great 
power," he said, " the irresistible argument for 
the truth as it is in Jesus. . . . Even in the 
Great Teacher himself, this is the chief power 
of persuasion, the source of abiding authority. 
The Christian religion would have died out long 
ago, under the load of corruptions and abuses. 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 333 

if tlie life of Jesus had not been its continued 
salvation." 

Believing as he did in the power of spiritual 
truth as manifested in the life and character, and 
in the infinite value of exalted personality, Dr. 
Eliot always declared the importance of personal 
allegiance to Christ, and this doctrine he asserted 
with increasing emphasis as a judgment strength- 
ened by experience. In a sermon on " The Chris- 
tian Faith and Life," he said : To do justly, 
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God, is 
everywhere and always a sure passport to his 
favor, whether in Christian or heathen lands. 
But . . . here in Christendom, where the Chris- 
tian rehgion is the recognized standard of moral 
civilization, and open and avowed allegiance to 
Jesus Christ as guide, teacher, and spiritual re- 
deemer is the wise and rational course, no great 
moral movement, no spiritual organization, cer- 
tainly no Christian church, can be successfully 
maintained without a recognized leader, a spirit- 
ual authority, to whom there is the highest ap- 
peal. If the time ever comes for such authority 
to be superseded, it must be only because a higher 
and better light comes in. A new leader, a more 
glorious redeemer, must first appear, to whom 
the transferred allegiance may be given. But al- 
ways, on the common principles of human nature, 
it is to a personal guide, a living redeemer, that 
we must look. Abstractions, however pure and 



334 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



glorious, do not comfort, do not strengthen the 
desponding soul, do not save from besetting sins. 
The counsel of a trusted friend who speaks from 
experience and transfers to us the consolations 
and strength of his own heart is better than them 
all." 

In Martineau's Introduction to Taylor's " Re- 
trospect of the Religious Life of England," he 
lays the same emphasis on the power of a lofty 
personality to embody and vitalize the truths of 
morality and religion, which, thereafter no longer 
" logical and abstract," appeal to the mass of 
mankind with greater force after they have " come 
through human life." He also says : " There are 
many Unitarians . . . who expect no help in 
their approach to God and ascent to higher duty, 
except through the hierarchy of greater and holier 
minds, but who see in Jesus Christ the supreme 
term in that hierarchy." 

A series of four sermons by Dr. Eliot, delivered 
in 1864-65, was published in pamphlet form, un- 
der the title of " Christ's Record of Himself, an 
Expression of Faith in the Gospel of J esus Christ." 
Dr. Eliot, in 1882, had this pamphlet reprinted 
from the first edition, " as a renewed expression 
of that Faith in Jesus Christ and his Gospel " by 
which he had been " measurably sustained in the 
duties and trials of a life already prolonged be- 
yond the assigned limits of threescore years and 
ten." They were written for those " whose hearts 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 335 



yearned" for a Saviour who could "show them 
the Father/' and relieve them from the conflict 
of doubt and ignorance by assured words of con- 
scious spiritual nearness to God. These sermons 
were written in confirmation of the " divine mis- 
sion " of Christ, Dr. Ehot declaring this to be " the 
great religious question " of the day, and also 
asserting that there was a wider and more im- 
portant difference " between the rejection of 
Christ's spiritual authority and its admission, 
than between any two believers in him who 
differ only as to the degree of his exaltation ; 
since when the authority of Christ is admitted, 
his commands and doctrines rest upon the divine 
sanction with sufficient certainty, whatever be 
the opinion concerning his nature." Accepting 
his "record of himself," Dr. Eliot maintained 
that Christ claimed a degree of dignity, author- 
ity, and power such as no one else in all the re- 
cords of history has ever claimed ; and secondly, 
that he distinctly declared the fact of limitation 
and his own entire dependence upon God. 

In a sermon on " Christ and Liberty," deliv- 
ered at the National Unitarian Conference in 
1870, Dr. Eliot renewed his assertion of faith in 
the spiritual authority of Christ, and expressed 
his sense of the value of Christian obedience. 
He said : " The teaching of Jesus Christ is the 
truth of God, and his commands are the law of 
God, and our spiritual freedom is then most per- 



336 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



f ectly attained when we have most fully received 
his truth and law into our hearts." 

Although Dr. Eliot did not claim for Christian- 
ity a monopoly of spiritual truth, he beheved that 
most men, like himself, felt the need of a " guide 
and saviour." " There are two conceivable ways," 
he said, " by which men may come to the know- 
ledge of the highest spiritual truth, and to a per- 
fect system of morality. One may be called, for 
distinction, the rational or philosophical ; the 
other is the faith of Christian obedience. By the 
former a few persons of studious minds, and with 
opportunity for self -scrutiny and metaphysical 
thought, may rise from step to step, seeking after 
God if haply they may find Him, until at last 
they come to the highest that man can know, and 
find it to be the same which Jesus taught to the 
Samaritan woman eighteen hundred years ago : 
' God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must 
worship Him in spirit and in truth ; ' or, in seek- 
ing to attain the perfect ideal of human virtue, 
we determine to Hve every day up to our highest 
convictions of duty, to do no wrong, to indulge 
no impure thought, to have no selfish motive, to 
make the best of every faculty and control every 
tendency of evil. Slowly and painfully we struggle 
upwards, with many doubts and fears, questioning 
of the way and with uncertain aim, until, having 
labored long and hard, we come, perhaps, to one 
who ' opens the Scriptures ' and shows us, in 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 337 



Christ's example and the gospel system of mo- 
rality, the rule by which we have unwittingly 
been striving to live." 

" To the vast majority of men, and to the young 
universally, the plainer path of Christian obedi- 
ence is the safer way. Others must judge for 
themselves ; but for myself I am ready to avow 
my need of a guide and saviour by voluntary and 
hearty submission to Jesus Christ. We are not 
humbled, but exalted, not brought under a law 
of bondage, but under the law of liberty, which 
is perfect freedom." 

If a man so well poised as Dr. Eliot could be 
said to have a " ruling passion," it was surely the 
love of doing good. From early youth until the 
close of life he was devoted to the service of 
humanity, recognizing in mankind that common 
bond of fellowship which Christianity emphasizes. 
As the " Son of man " who had borne the sor- 
rows and " carried the griefs " of mankind, he 
reverenced Christ and regarded him with peculiar 
affection. 

In a sermon from the text, " Inasmuch as ye 
have done it unto one of the least of these my 
brethren, ye have done it unto me," Dr. Eliot 
declared that " the least of these my brethren " 
might be the lowest and most degraded of the 
human race, but were not for that reason removed 
from the sympathy of Christ nor should be from 
that of his followers. " This," he said, " is the 



338 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



new theory of religion. It is the divinely revealed 
rule of worship. It is the new and acceptable 
service of God. It is the final test of Christian 
discipleship. It is the practical platform of the 
broad Christian church." 

Dr. Eliot thus continued : " He who recognizes 
in every human being the presence of the Son of 
man, the glorified divine humanity which consti- 
tutes every immortal soul, however scarred and 
stained, the child of God 5 ... he who can look 
through all the incrustations of sin, and with the 
Christian's eye of faith discern there, in the cen- 
tre of the world-corrupted heart, the holy child 
Jesus, the divine seed of spiritual life which wiU 
surely find its development and growth to man- 
hood in the ages of eternity ; he who thus reads 
human nature in the mystery of its degradation, 
and treats it with reverent tenderness because it 
is allied to him who by his sinless glory is the 
incarnation of the invisible God, is the one who 
best understands the gospel of Jesus Christ. . . . 

" We puzzle ourselves about the nature of 
Christ, and how he stands related to God ; but 
the more important thing for us to know is, how 
he is related to man, and wherein his glory as the 
Son of man consists ; for by understanding this 
we partake of it, and shall discern it, or seek for 
it, in every human being. 

" We are weary of the discussions about Chris- 
tian worship and creeds. What place in the God- 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 339 



head does Jesus hold ? . . . As if lie cared about 
that ! As if the highest terms of praise and ado- 
ration were anything hut mockery and contempt^ 
when spoken by those who refuse to give him food 
and shelter and kindly sympathy by refusing to 
give them to ' these his brethren.' 

" We leave Jesus the Son of man to suffer the 
pains of cold, and hunger, and loneliness, while 
we are bitterly disputing how we may acceptably 
worship Jesus the Son of God. 

" We would only go back to Jesus Christ and 
him crucified ; the Christ of self-denial, the 
Christ of self-sacrifice, the Christ of humanity 
and love. From him we will not go." 

In the largest work of philanthropy, not less 
than in the best development of religious thought, 
we believe that " other foundation can no man 
lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." 

Dr. Eliot always inculcated the highest moral- 
ity. Though charitable to the offender, he was 
always earnest and impassioned in his denuncia- 
tion of sin. " The most serious of all subjects," 
he wrote, " is sin. It should never be spoken of 
lightly. By all the happiness it destroys, by all 
the misery it produces, by the glorious inheritance 
of which it deprives us, by the brutal debasement 
to which it brings us down, I conjure you never 
to think lightly of sin. It is our worst enemy ; 
let us so regard it. Nay, it is our only enemy. 
All other enemies can be converted into friends, 



340 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

but this — never. Only by absolute, unconditional 
resistance can we find peace here or hereafter." 

Of the sins of omission he wrote : " What 
right have we to think that the opportunity of 
to-day will be renewed to-morrow ? To-day vic- 
tory is offered, the enemy is unprepared, the way 
is open. To-morrow, forewarned, he is armed and 
ready ; the way is closed, and instead of victory, 
defeat. Opportunity is offered to every one ; he 
who knows how promptly to improve it is the 
most successful man. While we hesitate to strike, 
the iron cools, and then no vigor of striking will 
do. It is sin, this loss of opportunity, this pre- 
suming on to-morrow. A httle more sleep, a little 
more slumber, a little more folding of the hands 
in sleep ; so shall poverty come upon thee like 
an armed man." 

Among sins of omission, Dr. Eliot especially in- 
cluded neglect of the lowly. When in 1865, after 
the Civil War, he visited the prisons of St. Louis 
County, which were then in wretched condition, 
he published a statement addressed to his fellow- 
citizens, wherein, after giving the results of his 
careful inspection of the jails, he urged reform as 
a Christian obligation, maintaining that "sins of 
omission were sometimes as heinous as crimes 
of the worst barbarity." 

Although when called upon to speak without 
preparation Dr. Eliot's speech was always appro- 
priate and felicitous, his sermons were usually 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 341 



written beforehand, or he preached from full 
notes. Whenever he spoke extemporaneously, so 
logical was his reasoning, so convincing his argu- 
ment, that the discourse bore the stamp of careful 
preparation. As an instance of his readiness in 
such unpremeditated utterance, his friend Rev. 
John H. Heywood relates how on the 10th of 
April, 1841, Dr. Eliot went to Louisville to preach. 
The news of the death of President Harrison had 
just reached that then distant outpost. There 
was no time to write the sermon which the im- 
portance of the event demanded, and so with no 
opportunity for preparation Dr. Eliot entered the 
pulpit and preached a sermon, which was. Dr. 
Heywood declared, " plain and unpretentious, 
but so admirable in arrangement, so clear in state- 
ment, so exact in analysis, so fairly and finely ap- 
preciative of the late President's life and character, 
so justly interpreting the moral and spiritual les- 
sons taught by the event, that the mind of every 
hearer was held in closest, deepest attention." 

Prayer Dr. Eliot regarded as the subhmest ex- 
pression of religious feeling of which the human 
soul is capable. To Dr. Clarke, evidently in re- 
sponse to some remark from him, he wrote : 
" You cannot pray ! It is strange — very strange 
— that when the mind is so exhausted that it can- 
not think one sentence, it should be unable to 
engage in the most powerful exercise of which it 
is capable. . . . When I came from Peoria two 



342 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



weeks since I was fresh. ' I will pray earnestly 
every day/ but I cannot. I could ' say prayers/ 
but that I will not. For a few minutes daily I 
pray, and for the rest I try to live and think and 
feel in the spirit of prayer. It is the highest 
efPort of the whole mind ; to realize the Presence 
— to feel the Love — to trust implicitly, yet not 
idly, in God. I am perhaps too lenient to myself, 
but I will no longer harass myseK because my soul 
will not work in the traces which Richard Baxter 
wore. He was a good man and prayed by the 
hour. I will be a good man by God's help, and 
pray as much as I can." 

For a very few special occasions Dr. Eliot wrote 
prayers, of which several exist in manuscript form. 
One of these, written under the strain of a great 
sorrow, is given for the sake of other parents who 
have suffered the loss of children. On the 20th 
of February, 1865, Dr. Eliot's daughter Ada, a 
young girl then sixteen years of age, was drowned 
while skating with two companions, only children 
of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Salisbury. The first 
shock of the news of this terrible event com- 
pletely overwhelmed Dr. Ehot, but he soon recov- 
ered himself. Mindful of his duty as a pastor, 
and sympathizing with the parents who were more 
completely bereaved than himself, he attended 
the funeral of the Salisbury children, and from 
the depths of his own sorrow thus addressed the 
mourners present : " You who are parents know 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 343 



full well that there is no strength, no hope, no 
consolation except in God. Thanks be to God 
who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ. It is gwe7i to us ; we do not accompHsh 
it. We can fight the good fight, we can keep the 
faith. But the victory over death and the grave 
is given to us by God, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ. They cannot return to us, but we shall 
go to them. All of them are together now, dear 
friends, the children whom God gave to you. 
^ The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away ; 
blessed be the name of the Lord.' Even Jesus 
prayed, ' Let this cup pass from me.' May God 
help us also to say, ' Thy will be done.' 

" And to you who are young and full of life 
and hope as they were, I entreat you to be also 
as pure and religious and good. They always 
lived near to God and to his holy child, Jesus. 
They had given their hearts to him who died 
for them. They were with him here on earth, 
they are with him now in heaven. You cannot 
secure length of life, but by God's help you may 
secure its blessedness. You may consecrate your 
hearts, your lives, your all, in the Christian ser- 
vice, as those who have been taken from us have 
done." 

On the following day, at the funeral service 
of his own daughter. Dr. Eliot prayed : — 

" Almighty and most merciful God, who has 
taught us to call thee our Father, we thank thee 



3M WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



for this, that as a Father pitieth his children, so 
thou dost pity us. Most sorely do we feel the 
need of a Father's sympathy and love. Our 
hearts are bruised, they are broken ; but the 
broken and contrite heart thou wilt not despise. 

" We try to say it : ' Thy will, not ours, be 
done.' We struggle with ourselves, with groan- 
ings not to be uttered. The spirit is willing but 
the flesh is weak. Thou knowest our weakness. 
Thou rememberest we are dust. Have pity upon 
us, God our Father ! Out of the depths of sor- 
row we cry out to thee, the Living God. Give 
us strength ; withhold not from us thy consola- 
tion. Our hope is in thee; let us not be con- 
founded. 

" For this blessed one, 0 God, and for all our 
family in heaven, we thank thee. They still be- 
long to us, for they are with thee. The joy of our 
lives is fading away by the loss of their daily 
presence, and our beloved homes seem desolate 
and our hearts are bereaved. 0 God, pity our 
bereavement ! pardon the unreasonableness of 
grief ! The dark waves of trouble have so 
often gone over us, we are cast down, almost de- 
stroyed. Yet we thank thee for them. All that 
remains of life is not more precious than their 
memory. Thou alone knowest how we loved 
them. But we would not call them back. Our 
souls faint within us when we say it, for they 
were dearer than our life. But thou art giving 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 345 



US the victory. We are dumb with silence, because 
it is thy doing. Thy will, not ours, be done." 

Not only at this time, but always, Dr. Eliot 
sympathized in the sorrows of his people, as he 
also rejoiced with them. There seems to be a 
popular delusion that a man cannot be both a 
faithful pastor and a good preacher. If one 
regards a sermon simply as a literary production, 
an essay with well-rounded period and graceful 
simile, this may be true ; but if its purpose be 
rather to rouse the conscience than delight the 
ear, to quicken the spiritual life and engender 
hope and faith rather than merely to stimulate 
the intellectual powers, then that minister who 
has had the largest and deepest human experi- 
ence, who has been nearest to his people in their 
joys and sorrows, ought to be able to move and 
influence them as could no theorist of the study. 

One only of Dr. Eliot's books may be consid- 
ered purely secular, and this is the " Life of 
Archer Alexander." While upholding the prin- 
ciple of allegiance to law. Dr. Eliot maintained, 
as already mentioned, that under rare circum- 
stances a true hig^her law mioht cause one to 
stand in direct conflict with the " authorities 
that be," and that to the state or community this 
was nothing but the right of revolution, to the 
individual the call to martyrdom. Doubtless in 
making this statement he had in mind the Fugi- 
tive Slave Law, a law which, in a slave State, he 



346 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

had denounced from the pulpit, and declared 
that he would not obey, preferring rather to 
"bear the penalty of paying the price of the 
non-surrendered slave, or of the adjudged im- 
prisonment." When such an issue arose, he was 
prepared to meet it, as related in his " Life of 
Archer Alexander." 

Archer Alexander was a slave, who at the out- 
break of the Civil War lived in St. Charles 
County, not far from St. Louis. He was an intel- 
ligent man, and, from the discussions which he 
frequently overheard, realized that the interests 
of his race, and their hope of freedom, lay with 
the party of the Union. When therefore in Feb- 
ruary, 1863, he learned that the supports of a 
bridge over which the Union troops were to 
pass had been sawed through, he walked five 
miles by night to the house of a Union man, to 
convey the intelligence and give warning. He 
fell under suspicion, his life was threatened by 
secessionists, and with the fear of assassination 
to spur him on, he succeeded in making his 
escape to St. Louis. He came to work as an 
employee on Dr. EHot's place, and soon revealed 
his identity. The city was then under martial 
law, and Dr. Ehot obtained from the provost 
marshal a permit for Archer's service during a 
period of thirty days, or until his master estab- 
lished a legal claim. Meantime with the purpose 
of immediately enfranchising Archer, Dr. Eliot 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 347 



endeavored to purchase him, and a note con- 
taining the request and offer was sent by Judge 
Bates of St. Louis. The only effect of this com- 
munication was the violent abduction of the 
poor slave from Dr. Eliot's place by hired ruf- 
fians. As the period of thirty days, for which 
Archer's permit had been granted, had not yet 
expired, Dr. Eliot appealed to the military 
authorities, and by the aid of detectives Archer 
was discovered in jail, from which place his 
abductors expected to take him to Kentucky. 
He was returned to Dr. Eliot, to whom was 
granted protection for the poor man for an 
indefinite period. Again Dr. Eliot offered to 
purchase him, but no attention was paid to his 
second communication, and eventually with the 
rest of his race Archer became a free man. 

At the request of his children, Dr. Eliot em- 
bodied the incidents of Archer Alexander's life 
in the form of a narrative which reads like 
fiction. Incidentally the " Life of Archer Alex- 
ander " became what the author termed in the 
preface, a fair presentation of slavery in the 
Border States for the twenty or thirty years pre- 
ceding the outbreak of hostilities." Of the 
justice of this claim Dr. EHot was convinced, 
when a leading publishing house in a Northern 
city, to whom the manuscript was submitted, 
objected to its publication as being " too tame 
to satisfy the public taste." Parties equally 



\ 



348 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



prominent in a city farther south declared that 
the judgment of slavery and slaveholders was 
too harsh, and that the publication of Archer's 
story would be prejudicial to the publishers. Dr. 
Eliot tells us that he then asked the opinion of 
several friends who, having always lived in the 
slave States, had yet devoted their lives to the 
cause of freedom, and were therefore qualified to 
give a dispassionate judgment as to the truth of 
his delineation " of the relation between master 
and slave, and the social condition of slavehold- 
ing communities." They more than confirmed 
the truth of Dr. Eliot's statements. 

In the preface to the " Life of Archer Alex- 
ander," Dr. Eliot also declared that only those 
who had hved in the border slave States from 
1830 to 1860 could understand the complica- 
tions and difficulties of the irrepressible conflict, 
or how hard it was to maintain self-respect 
" under the necessities of deliberate and cautious 
action," and " to speak plainly without giving 
such degree of offense as would prevent one from 
speaking at all." Yet it was in these States that 
" the first and hardest battles for freedom were 
fought, and where the ground was prepared upon 
which the first great victories were won." 

Upon this subject Dr. Eliot might well speak 
with deep feeling. He himself had worked with 
unchanging persistency of purpose in the cause of 
emancipation, yet had been censured for adopt- 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 349 



ing a temporizing, time-serving policy/' while 
the very fact of his continued residence in a slave 
community was held as a reproach against him. 
Yet there, true to his principles, he was endeavor- 
ing to acquire an influence that he could use to 
good purpose when the fitting time arrived. What 
he thus accomplished has been already shown. 

The value of Dr. Eliot's impartial presentation 
of the social condition of slaveholding commu- 
nities may at some future time be more fully ap- 
preciated. Uncle Tom's Cabin " will always be 
popular ; yet a future generation, knowing it to 
be a work of fiction, may believe the picture over- 
drawn. In the true story of Archer Alexander, 
Dr. Eliot declared that there is nothing in all the 
scenes of " Uncle Tom's Cabin " to which he him- 
self could not find a parallel in all he had seen 
and known in St. Louis previous to the war of 
secession. To such books as the " Life of Archer 
Alexander "the student of history must turn for 
reliable information regarding the " peculiar in- 
stitution." 

Archer Alexander, the man, has been immor- 
talized by Thomas Ball, a sculptor, in the bronze 
group surmounting a monument erected by the 
colored people of the United States as a memorial 
to Abraham Lincoln, and known as " Freedom's 
Memorial." It stands in the Capitol grounds at 
Washington, and its duplicate in Park Square, 
Boston. In this group Lincoln is represented in 



350 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



the act of emancipating a negro slave, who kneels 
to receive the benediction while grasping his 
chain as if to break it. In the original design 
the figure of the slave was ideal ; but at the re- 
quest of the Western Sanitary Commission, the 
active agent in collecting the funds and erecting 
the monument, the figure of Archer Alexander, 
as the representative of his race, was substituted. 
The likeness is exact. 

The Freedmen's Memorial Monument to Abra- 
ham Lincoln was inaugurated in Lincoln Park, 
Washington, D. C, on the eleventh anniversary 
of his death, April 14, 1876. To Dr. Eliot was 
assigned the presentation of the monument " for 
the acceptance and approval of those who had 
contributed the funds for its erection," and he 
was also expected to give a brief history of the 
memorial. This he prepared and forwarded to 
Mr. James E. Yeatman, with the request that he 
act as the representative of the Western Sanitary 
Commission on this occasion. To Mr. Yeatman 
Dr. Eliot's absence was a matter of regret, and 
in a letter he said : " To you more than to any 
one else is the success of our Commission to be 
attributed. It was your head that conceived, 
planned, and developed the work. It was your 
hand at the helm that guided the ship in its 
course. . . . We can spare any one better than 
yourself, the most important, the soul and 
embodiment of the Commission. Your lifelong 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 351 



sympathies with the cause of freedom should 
prompt you to be present to witness the crown- 
ing act of gratitude of the emancipated to the 
emancipator." 

The " Life of Archer Alexander " was pub- 
lished in 1885, little over a year previous to the 
death of Dr. Eliot. His strength was then gradu- 
ally failing. For many years he had been subject 
to headaches, constantly increasing in frequency, 
and lasting for longer periods. This was the pro- 
test of an overtaxed brain while the mind was 
still clear and active, full of plans for the future 
of Washington University and other useful work. 

In the summer of 1886, on his seventy-sixth 
birthday, August 5, 1886, Dr. Eliot wrote the 
poem " Nunc Dimittis," which voiced his own 
consciousness of his approaching end, and his 
desire of release from suffering and disability, 
while ready to live or die " as the Lord willed." 

" Fain would I breathe that gracious word, 
Now lettest thou thy servant, Lord, 

Depart in peace. 
When may I humbly claim that kind award, 

And cares and labors cease ? 
With anxious heart I watch at heaven's gate — 

Answer to hear ; 
With failing strength I feel the increasing weight 

Of every passing year. 
Hath not the time yet fully come, dear Lord, 

Thy servant to release ? 

Be still, my heart ! In silence God doth speak, 
Here is thy place ; here, not at heaven's gate ; 



352 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

Thy task is not yet finished; frail and weak, 

Doing or suffering, steadfast in thy faith, 

Thy service is accepted, small or great; 

His time is thine — or soon or late, 

If daylight fades, work while the twilight lasts." 

Dr. Eliot, very frail and feeble, returned in 
the fall of 1886, from Jefferson, New Hamp- 
shire, to his home in St. Louis. With indomitable 
will he continued to struggle against increasing 
weakness, longing to achieve purposes still unac- 
complished for which he would gladly have lived. 
At the beginning of the new year he was taken 
south to the milder climate of Pass Christian, 
Mississippi, where he died January 23, 1887. 
His active mind remained clear and conscious to 
the last moment of life. 

What was the secret of Dr. Eliot's power? 
Above all else, his absolute seK-consecration to 
the service of God and man, which was to him 
not only a duty but a divine instinct inspired by 
love. This it was that impelled him to leave home 
and friends and the attractions of the older com- 
munities to work in the then " far West," and 
later to resist the temptation to return eastward 
under favorable auspices. He went to St. Louis 
not only as an evangelist, a missionary of a 
liberal faith to spiritualize Unitarianism in the 
West, but as an educator, a philanthropist, a 
patriotic citizen of the Eepublic, to assist in 
founding institutions of learning, in advancing 
all humane objects, and in making Missouri a 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 353 



free State. Strong and decided in his convictions, 
he never wavered from a purpose once formed, 
founded as it was sure to be on eternal principles 
of right and justice. He wrote truly to James 
Freeman Clarke in his student days, that princi- 
ples were what his nature craved. Upon these as 
a foundation was based all his work. He began 
his ministry in St. Louis, with an assertion in his 
first sermon delivered there of the principles upon 
which a Christian society should be founded, de- 
claring that the primary object of such an organ- 
ization ought to be the accomplishment of the 
Christian character in the individual members, 
while next in importance were usefulness in works 
of kindness and benevolence and the diffusion of 
Christian truth. These principles were not for- 
gotten by the pastor or people of the Church of 
the Messiah, as attested in many a life of integ- 
rity and usefulness. 

In assertion of the principle of the supreme 
importance of high personal character. Dr. EHot 
declared in his sermon on " Social Reform " that 
the regeneration of society depended upon the 
individuals of which it was composed, and their 
moral and religious status determined public sen- 
timent and action. 

Ardent in the cause of education, Dr. Eliot ad- 
vocated absolute non-sectarianism in the conduct 
of the free schools, and this principle was recog- 
nized in the charter of Washington University, 



354 WILLIAM GEEENLEAF ELIOT 

for which institution he would fain have adopted 
the motto, " Veritas pro veritate." Faithful 
also to the ideal of " a good education for the 
many, the best possible education for the few/' 
no financial exigency ever betrayed Washington 
University into lowering its standard of educa- 
tion for the sake of increasing the number of its 
students. 

Living in a slave State, and regarding slavery 
as a curse and evil scarcely to be endured. Dr. 
EHot yet believed that as an institution of long 
standing it permeated the social fabric, and had 
received the sanction of law, regard for which and 
the Constitution was a sacred obligation. With- 
out a violation of the principle of the supremacy 
of law, by legitimate methods he desired to see 
slavery abolished, with the least possible injury 
to established rights and forms of law. For this 
reason, and because he realized the momentous 
social change involved in the altered relation be- 
tween whites and blacks in the slave States by the 
abolition of slavery, he advocated gradual eman- 
cipation ; yet when finally the problem approached 
solution during the war period, no man could be 
more eager and anxious than Dr. EHot to hasten 
the dawn of freedom. 

During the period of the Civil War, in the pa- 
triotic sermons delivered by Dr. Eliot on various 
occasions, the principle of reverence for law was 
inculcated as a more exalted principle of action 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 355 



than simply the emotion of patriotism. Loyalty 
to the Union as a sacred obligation he urged 
again and again. " The soul of our country/' 
he said, " is the Union. A Confederation will 
not do. It was tried and failed long ago, and 
now its hope of succeeding would be a hundred 
times less. Under the secession doctrine no na- 
tion could exist." 

Although founded on principle, Dr. Eliot's pa- 
triotism was characterized also by exalted emo- 
tion. In a sermon addressed to the members of 
the " Old Guard," referring to his own early re- 
collection of " the booming cannon and shouts 
of rejoicing in the city of Baltimore when the 
British abandoned the attack on Fort Henry," 
he said : " They may tell us we lack the enthu- 
siasm of youth and its freshness of feeling, but 
what can the young man have to inspire him with 
memories such as these ? With us the love of 
country is the love of life, and to witness our 
country's ruin would be the disappointment of 
all our hopes, the failure of life's work. ... In 
advancing life the heart's fire burns less impetu- 
ously, and the pulse is more calm and slow ; but 
the fire of patriotism never goes out ; it needs no 
rekindling, and the heart once thoroughly warmed 
by it, grows cold only in death." 

As Dr. Eliot believed that the Civil War would 
never have occurred had there existed in the 
South a proper spirit of reverence for law and 



356 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



the Constitution, so he thought that the recogni- 
tion of this principle and that of national suprem- 
acy as opposed to the extreme doctrine of state 
rights was essential to the work of reconstruction. 

The record of Dr. Eliot's pubHc services dwin- 
dles in comparison with the story of his deeds of 
kindness to individuals. As a minister he felt a 
personal interest in each member of his congre- 
gation. In his work for emancipation he did not 
overlook the bondman or bondwoman whom he 
could rescue for freedom. The Western Sanitary 
Commission, unlike the United States Sanitary 
Commission, was not organized on a theory, but 
arose from the exigency of the moment when 
wounded and dying soldiers were brought to St. 
Louis, and there was no place ready to receive 
them. While organizing and directing the work 
of the Commission, Dr. EHot visited daily the 
sick and dying in the hospitals. Long after the 
war his old horse " Ned " wanted to stop wher- 
ever there had formerly stood a hospital. His 
sympathies were limited to no caste, color, creed, 
or party, except as he regarded " the least of 
these my brethren " as more peculiarly under his 
care, among such including the negro whom he 
aided from slavery to freedom. In the work of 
the Western Sanitary Commission he recognized 
no distinction of friend or foe, of Federal or Con- 
federate, in the treatment of the sick and wounded. 
As a minister, although a Unitarian in faith, he 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 357 

belonged to the church universal whose congre- 
gation includes all humanity. 

In a letter published after his death, a friend 
wrote of him : " His tender considerateness, his 
warm and ready sympathy with suffering in all 
its forms, his generous assistance given with a 
lavish hand (by this man so parsimonious to him- 
self) whenever he saw a need, — these were his 
characteristics. . . . No one observed more reli- 
giously than he, the precept not to let the right 
hand know the good deeds of the left." 

Dr. Eliot's work for temperance reform was in- 
spired by his personal experience of the " social 
unwritten statistics of intemperance." Through 
a sort of inductive method, his public measures 
were often the result of the saving work he was 
called upon to do in the ministry. In the pur- 
suit of a cause he never lost sight of the individ- 
ual men and women who were to be benefited. 

In a memorial sermon Dr. James Freeman 
Clarke said : " William Eliot was appealed to as 
an adviser and guide in all kinds of perplexities. 
He sometimes took long journeys to bring 
domestic peace to a household, to reconcile 
parents to children. His wisdom, firmness, kind- 
ness, loyalty to right, usually brought concord 
out of discord. This he was accustomed to call 
the fancy work of a minister's profession." 

A prominent trait in Dr. Eliot's character, 
acknowledged by himself, was his dread of 



358 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

praise. Said Dr. Clarke in his memorial sermon, 
referring to Dr. Eliot : " It was his often ex- 
pressed wish that nothing should be said of him 
in the way of eulogy. He disHked praise as most 
men dishke blame; but I think it is due to 
truth and to the interest of humanity that one 
who has led a steady life of self-denying useful- 
ness should have it put on record, to encourage 
others to do the same. It is as idle for a man to 
try to conceal his manhness, as to conceal his 
faults." 

The motto on Dr. Eliot's family crest was 
" Tace et fac." Another less commonly used in 
the family was, " Non nobis solum/' and this he 
preferred. Praise seemed to induce in him a 
feeling of humility that he had not accomplished 
more. To God he would indeed give all the 
glory. Dr. James Freeman Clarke, evidently in 
one of his missionary sermons, made some laud- 
atory remarks regarding the liberality of Dr. 
EHot's church ; and the latter wrote : " Speak 
more gingerly of us, — in good-natured general 
terms, if at all, — as ' our httle sister ' at the 
West, who seems tall only because she stands 
alone, which is the fact. Seriously, the more 
unobserved we are, the better for us, and very 
decidedly the more pleasant." Upon this letter 
Dr. Clarke wrote : " W. G. Eliot. Answered. 
' Men do not light a candle and put it under 
a bushel,' etc.," from which we infer the tenor 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 



359 



of his reply. Dr. Eliot somewhat humorously re- 
cords the fact that he had promised Mr. Reavis, 
author of " Saint Louis, the Future Great City 
of the West," that he would write a notice of the 
book if Mr. Reavis would not put his name in it, 
a compact which was kept. 

It was inevitable that a man possessed of so 
much self-control as Dr. Eliot should have pre- 
sence of mind in any trying ordeal. On at least 
one occasion his own life and the lives of several 
other persons were thereby saved. The incident 
referred to occurred on Hampton Beach after a 
storm, when the waves ran high and there was a 
strong undertow. Most of the bathers had left 
the water, and Dr. Eliot was just preparing to do 
so, when he heard his daughter call to him for 
help. She and several young companions, clasp- 
ing hands, had ventured out too far and lost 
their footing. Dr. Eliot went to their assistance, 
and found that he too was being drawn seaward 
by the sliding sand. Only two persons on the 
shore, his httle grandchild and her mother, saw 
the bathers as they were apparently engulfed by 
an enormous wave. They only realized the threat- 
ened catastrophe. When after the lapse of mo- 
ments Dr. Eliot's head emerged from the rush 
of waters, the expression of mingled agony and 
resignation on his uplifted face confirmed the 
worst fears of the two beholders. Amid the 
thunder of the waves the cry " They are drown- 



360 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



ing ! " was for some moments unnoticed and 
unheard by persons scattered over the beach, 
who, engrossed in other things, were unaware of 
what was happening. This seeming unconcern 
appeared the very " mockery of grief." In the 
absence of any means of relief, before assistance 
could be rendered, the bathers struggled to the 
shore, spent and exhausted. Dr. Eliot had for 
one moment believed escape from drowning im- 
possible, but seeing a huge wave approaching, he 
cried : " Now, girls, jump for your lives ! " En- 
couraged by his tones, they made a supreme 
effort, were carried in a httle way, and repeating 
this with each succeeding wave, succeeded finally 
in obtaining a footing. One moment of hesita- 
tion on Dr. Eliot's part, of failure on that of the 
young girls to obey his direction, and all of 
them would have been swept out to sea. It is 
such crises of life that prove the man, whether 
he be strong or weak. 

Dr. Eliot always maintained that whatever it 
was right to do, could and must be done, no 
matter how great the sacrifice required. Natural 
energy, religious zeal, love of humanity, and the 
desire to do good, operated as powerful incen- 
tives to effort. The almost invariable success of 
his labors often concealed the difficulty of the 
task. To a friend to whom he appealed for aid, 
when endeavoring to increase the endowment 
fund of the Washington University Law School, 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 361 



he wrote : " You know how hard I have labored 
for thirty years past, and I think you will agree 
with me that the results have not been without 
benefit to the general advancement and pros- 
perity of the city ; but no one can know the diffi- 
culties and discouragements which I am often 
compelled to meet." 

Early in his ministry, under the stress of many 
cares, Dr. Eliot declared that, whatever the re- 
sult, he could not abandon his chosen field of 
work. " God has placed me here to work," he 
wrote in 1836 from St. Louis, "and the work 
shall be done or I will fail under it. I have no 
choice here. I cannot ' take it easy,' for that is 
to be unfaithful." Yet he acknowledged that, 
with his own experience of "complete exhaus- 
tion of the whole faculties," he sometimes felt 
that it was wrong for him to encourage young men 
to come and do the same, since it brought on 
" premature old age." 

Dr. Eliot's home life was very dear to him. 
Always devoted to httle children, as he grew 
older he loved them with an almost increasing 
fondness, and to his grandchildren came a heri- 
tage of affection. The days they spent with him 
were red-letter days, looked forward to with 
delight and cherished in remembrance. Many 
were the verses full of quaint conceits he wrote 
for them on birthdays and other occasions, and 
warm and cordial the greeting when they came 



362 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 



to visit him. Hearing their voices in the hall, he 
would rise from his reclining chair in the study, 
and come out with beaming countenance to clasp 
a child in each arm. At dinner-time, as they sat 
about him at the long table, he was the picture 
of beneficence and happiness. An unbroken re- 
cord of his labors might convey the impression 
that life to him was altogether serious, but such 
an inference is erroneous. Naturally cheerful, 
his hopefulness was increased by his faith in the 
ultimate triumph of good, while reHgious resigna- 
tion and trust tided him over the deeps of afflic- 
tion. His was a life not given to pleasure, but 
finding in many ways rest and relaxation from 
toil. He greatly enjoyed travel, and a glimpse 
of the ocean always invigorated and refreshed 
him as if with new currents of vital power. The 
last summer of his life was spent among the 
mountains, and at its close he expressed his re- 
gret that he had not chosen differently, exclaim- 
ing, " Oh, I so longed for the seashore ! " 

As with many other persons of great earnest- 
ness of disposition, Dr. Eliot possessed a fine 
sense of humor, which proved a valuable counter- 
poise to the pressure of care or burden of sorrow. 
This side of his nature he manifested more 
strongly among intimate friends, who loved and 
understood him. With them he could converse 
less reservedly, in light or serious vein, or enjoy 
an occasional encounter of wit. Although prac- 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 363 



tical duties had interposed between him and that 
life of study and contemplation which had made 
his student days so attractive to him, among 
friends of kindred tastes he found pleasure in 
the discussion of books and authors, and the apt- 
ness of his references and quotations proved that 
his literary tastes were merely held in abeyance 
to urgent duties. 

A sense of the responsibilities of the pastoral 
relation was in Dr. Eliot very strong. It was not 
limited to those of his own parish under his 
immediate care, but extended to all who in any 
trouble, any crisis of life, came to him for ad- 
vice or assistance. The bond thus established 
remained, and large was the flock he held in 
remembrance and affection. He especially re- 
cognized the claim upon him of the poor and 
humble. In his absence from home a call came 
summoning him to a home where a child lay dead. 
" I left the address upon his study table," said a 
member of his family, " and wrote upon it, ' Pau- 
per.' I knew he would go at once when he saw 
that." The colored man, his protege, Archer 
Alexander, he always regarded as under his 
special charge, and would never allow him to 
want for anything essential. After the man's 
death he took legal charge of his adopted daugh- 
ter, a little quadroon child, and provided for her 
several years until a permanent home could be 
found. 



364 WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT 

In Dr. Eliot's nature seeming diversities were 
reconciled in a strong, well-balanced character. 
He was grave and serious as was fitting in one 
to whom life was so earnest, yet when not over- 
burdened with care he was full of wit and humor. 
Reserved in the expression of his own deeper 
emotions, he responded quickly with sympathy 
and practical aid to the sorrows and needs of 
others. Stern in his rebuke of sin, to the repent- 
ant he was tender and encouraging. Conserva- 
tive in his religious convictions, in the advocacy 
of reform he was bold and radical, in all things 
showing the same conservative radicalism he at- 
tributed to Martineau. Adverse as he was to the 
extremes of ecclesiasticism, which he regarded as 
burdensome and exacting, he found perfect lib- 
erty in allegiance to Christ. Believing that reH- 
gion must be a personal expression, an inward 
turning of the heart to God, he yet appreciated 
the institutions of religion for their influence in 
effecting this result, holding them to exist not 
for the glory of God, but the elevation of human- 
ity. He practiced a rigid self-denial, which some- 
times conveyed the impression of asceticism, but 
it was exercised with a practical object in view, 
and not as spiritual self-discipline. Sensitive to 
beautiful surroundings, he enjoyed comfort and 
luxury ; but he had so many uses for money in the 
accomplishment of unselfish aims that he was, as 
already expressed, " abstemious to himself." 



SERMONS AND OTHER WRITINGS 365 



Based on a few great principles, ruled by strong 
convictions, inspired by the love of God as the 
Supreme Good, and of humanity as full of divine 
possibilities, the life of William Greenleaf Eliot 
admitted no complexity of motive, no deviation 
from a lofty purpose. 

In the Church of the Messiah, St. Louis, at the 
right of the altar, is erected a memorial tablet to 
Br. Eliot, placed there by friends who cherished 
for him sincere affection and esteem. The inscrip- 
tion, composed by Colonel George E. Leighton, 
is classic in its inclusive brevity. It is as follows : 
"In Memoriam, Rev. William Greenleaf Eliot, 
D. D., 1811-1887, Pastor of this Church 1834- 
1873, and the wise helper and counselor of 
church and people until his death. 

" His best monument is to be found in the 
many educational and philanthropic institutions 
of St. Louis, to which he gave the disinterested 
labor of his life. 

" The whole city was his parish, and every soul 
needing him a parishioner." 



INDEX 



Academy of Science, St. Louis, 
W. G. E. one of the founders of, 
67. 

Adams, John Quincy, anecdote 

concerning, 5. 
Alexander, Archer, incidents of 

life, 346, 347. "Life of," 129, 

345-349, 351. 
Alton, military prison at, 227. 
Andersonville, Ga., attempt to aid 

Union prisoners there, 249, 250 ; 

National Cemetery at, 251. 
Arkansas Post, Ark., capture of, 

241. 

Ashley, General and Mrs., 39. 
" Atlantic Monthly," 297. 

Bailley, Dr., army surgeon, 215, 
216. 

Bancroft, George, on emancipation 
in. Missouri, 196. 

Banks,General N.P., in Texas, 246. 

Barnard, James M., 237. 

Bates, Edward, Attorney-General, 
letter to W. G. E., 165 ; at Wash- 
ington, 178. 

Benton, Hon. Thomas H., 39, 75 ; 
letter to, from W. G. E., 143-145 ; 
political record, 146, 147. 

Boys' Industrial School (after- 
wards Mission Free School), 
maintained by Unitarian Society 
in St. Louis, 65. 

Bridge, Hudson E., director Wash- 
ington University, 83; gift to 
University, 118. 



Brookings, Robert S., president 
board of directors Washington 
University, 122 ; gifts to Univer- 
sity, 122. 

Butler, Mann, director Washington 
University, 83. 

Butterfield, Justin, 73. 

Cameron, Simon, Secretary of War, 

W. G. E. has interview with, 221. 
Campbell, Hon. WiUiam, W. G. E. 

writes letter to, 143, 145. 
Camp Jackson, 77, 160, 166. 
Cavender, John, cares for refugees, 

253, 255. 
Chaneellorsville, battle of, 209. 
Channing, William Ellery, D. D., 

pastor Federal Street Church, 

Boston, 17 ; veneration of W. G. 

E. for, 18 ; views, 21 ; influence 

on W. G. E., 328. 
Channing, Rev. William Henry, 

ideality, 9 ; decides not to go 

West, 14. 
Chase, Salmon P., Secretary of the 

Treasury, letter to, from W. G. 

E., 163-165. 
Chauvenet, William, Chancellor 

Washington University, 86 ; 

death of, 95 ; reference to, 100, 

109. 

Clarke, Abram, 57. 

Clarke, Rev. James Freeman, 
D. D., friend of W. G. E., 8, 9; 
correspondence with, 10-12, 14- 
17 ; pleaches at ordination of. 



368 



INDEX 



17 ; extracts from memorial ser- 
mon, 27, 357, 358 ; letters to, from 
W. G. E., 136, 137, 341, 342, 358 ; 
editor of periodical, 324, 325. 

Crafts, Colonel Thomas, reads De- 
claration of Independence, 5. 

Cranch, Abby A., marriage, 36. 
(See Mrs. W. G. Eliot, Jr.) 

Cranch, Judge William, 4, 5, 36. 

Crow, Wayman, letter to W. G. E., 
43 ; member Missouri General 
Assembly, 80; secures charter 
for " Eliot Seminary," 81 ; vice- 
president board of directors of 
Washington University, 82 ; ad- 
dress at inauguration of Chan- 
cellor Eliot, 98-100 ; erects Mu- 
seum of Fine Arts, 111, 112; 
signs letter to W. G. E., 320. 

Cupples, Samuel, gift to Washing- 
ton University, 122. 

Curtis, S. R., Major-General, 179, 
227, 229, 231, 235. 

Cutter, Norman, W. G. E. writes 
to, 187. 

Dall, Rev. Charles, minister at 
large, 28. 

Davidson, J. W., Brigadier-Gen- 
eral, 246, 247. 

Dawes, Margaret, marries W. G. 
E., Senior, 1. (See also Margaret 
Dawes Eliot.) 

Dawes, Colonel Thomas, great- 
grandfather of W. G. E., Jr., 3. 

Dawes, Judge Thomas, grand- 
father of W. G. E., Jr., 3, 4. 

De Camp, Dr., Medical Director, 
223, 224. 

De Lange, Rev. Mordecai, minister 

at large, 28. 
De Normandie, Dr., quoted, 13. 
Douglass, Dr., associate member 

Western Sanitary Commission, 

222. 

Douglass, Frederick, advice to 
men of his race, 297. 



Eaton, N. J., director Washington 

University, 83. 
Eliot, Ada, 342. 

Eliot, Rev, Andrew, great-grand- 
father of W. G. E., Jr., 2. 

Eliot, Frank Andrew, war record, 
209, 210 ; memorial to, 210. 

Eliot, Margaret Dawes (Mrs.W. G. 
Eliot, Senior), mother of W. G. 
E,, Jr., 2 ; instructor of her chil- 
dren, 6. 

Eliot, Samuel, grandfather of W. 
G. E., Jr., 4. 

Eliot Seminary, incorporated, 81 ; 
name changed to Washington 
University, 84. 

Eliot, Hon. Thomas Dawes, grad- 
uates at Columbian College, 7 ; 
letter to, from W. G. E., 92 ; m- 
troduces resolution in House of 
Representatives, 183 ; letter to, 
from W. G. E., 184-186. 

Eliot, Rev. Thomas Lamb, minis- 
ter at large, 28. 

Eliot, WiUiam Greenleaf , birth, 1 . 
ancestry, 2-5 ; early traits of 
character, 6, 7 ; graduates from 
Columbian CoUege, Washington, 
D. C, 7 ; employed in Postal 
Department, at Washington, 7 ; 
enters Harvard Divinity School, 
8 ; friendship with James Free- 
man Clarke, 8, 9 ; interest in 
German philosophy, 10, 11 ; faith 
in the existence of truth, 12 ; 
believes it to be found in the 
"path of duty," 12; friends of, 
13, 14 ; decides to begin his min- 
istry in the West, 14-17; or- 
dained as an Evangelist, 17, 18 ; 
receives a call to St, Louis, 18, 
19 ; journey thither, 19 ; a call 
to New York, possibility of , con- 
sidered, 23, 24; letter to Dr. 
Freeman, 21, 22 ; organizes First 
Congregational Society of St. 
Louis, 23 ; letter to, from Chris- 



INDEX 



369 



topher Rhodes, 23-25 ; goes East 
to solicit funds for erection of a 
church, 25, 26 ; secret of success 
in raising money, 26, 27 ; or- 
ganizes Unitarian Society in St. 
Louis as a charitable association, 
27, 28 ; letter to Mr. Ticknor, 
29 ; receives degree of Doctor of 
Divinity from Harvard Univer- 
sity, 30 ; sermon delivered by, on 
twenty-fifth anniversary of the 
Church of the Messiah, 31 ; ad- 
dress of, before Franklin Society, 
33-35 ; marriage of, 36 ; his wed- 
ding journey, 37 ; character of 
his preaching, 40, 41 ; pastoral 
care, 41, 42 ; pressure of duties 
and effect on, 42, 43 ; goes abroad 
for rest, 43; call to King's 
Chapel, 44 ; ministrations during 
cholera epidemic, 45-51 ; leaves 
St. Louis for rest, 52 ; missionary 
labors of, 53-58 ; proposes erec- 
tion of new church, 59, 60 ; pa- 
ralysis of right arm, 60 ; goes 
abroad a second time, 61 ; pur- 
chases building for Mission Free 
School, 62 ; interest in education, 
66, 67 ; member public school 
boajd, 69 ; plans to increase 
school funds, 70-73; works to 
obtain law authorizing school 
tax, 75-77 ; believes free school 
system of supreme importance, 
77, 78 ; Dr. Heywood on work 
of, for popular education in St. 
Louis, 78, 79 ; interest of, in 
higher education, 80 ; relates 
how "Eliot Seminary" was in- 
corporated, 81 ; requests change 
of name, 82 ; elected president 
board of directors, 82; address of, 
to board of directors at first meet- 
ing, 84, 85 ; raises endowment 
and building fund for Washing- 
ton University, 86-88 ; appeal 
for additional endowment in 



Boston in 1864, 89-92 ; resigna- 
tion as pastor Church of the 
Messiah, 95 ; inauguration of, as 
Chancellor Washington Univer- 
sity, 98-104; his ideal "a good 
education for the many, the best 
education for the few," 105 ; 
urges increased endowment 
fund, 106, 107; desires " Veritas 
pro veritate " as motto for Uni- 
versity, 108, 109 ; ideas regarding 
comparative importance of clas- 
sical and scientific studies, 109, 
110 ; high standard of scholar- 
ship in either the essential, 110 ; 
urges creation general lecture 
fimd, 112 ; recommends estab- 
lishment of a department of 
American history, 112, 113; 
makes University chief recipient 
James Smith bequest, 114, 115 ; 
last formal report to board of 
directors, 115-120; death, 121; 
memorial tribute to, 122-125; 
a lifelong emancipationist, 126- 
128; position on slavery ques- 
tion, 128-132 ; withdraws from 
Western Unitarian Conference, 
132, 133 ; sermon of, on social re- 
form, 133-135 ; accused of " com- 
plicity with slavery," 136, 137; 
Phi Beta Kappa address of, in 
1864, 137, 138; sermon of, on 
slavery, 139; publishes articles 
on gradual emancipation, 140- 
143 ; writes to legislators on same 
subject, 143-145 ; references of, 
to slavery in anniversary sermon, 
147-151 ; an Unconditional Union 
man, 154 ; preaches sermon on 
evils of disunion, 155; on "The 
Higher Law Doctrine North and 
South," 156-159; revises Gen- 
eral Harney's proclamation, 161 ; 
letter to Secretary Chase, 163- 
165 ; to Attorney-General Bates, 
165 ; to Mrs. Fremont, 166, 167 ; 



370 



INDEX 



draws up plan for organization 
Western Sanitary Commission, 
168 ; delivers sermon on " Loy- 
alty and Religion," 169-171; 
takes letter from Governor Gam- 
ble to President, 172; con- 
tributes to State Fund for ex- 
pense of enrolled militia, 173 ; 
writes memorial to Governor 
Gamble on assessments, 174-177 ; 
advocates emancipation as a war 
measure, 182, 183 ; urges passage 
of compensated emancipation 
bill for IVIissouri, 184:-189 ; urges 
emancipation on Missouri Gen- 
eral Assembly, 189, 190 ; urges 
calling of convention, 190 ; 
preaches on "Emancipation in 
Missouri," 192-194; letter to 
General Schofield suggesting re- 
voking issuing of permits for 
removal of slaves from State, 
with draft of order, 197-199; plan 
for enlistment of slaves, 200-202 ; 
suggests to Secretary Stanton 
that bounty be paid colored re- 
cruits, 203, 204 ; endorses Gen- 
eral Schofield in memorial to 
Senate, 205-207 ; chaplain to 
" Old Guard " of St. Louis, 207 ; 
sermon to, 207, 208; death of 
brother at Chancellors ville, 209, 
210 ; establishes scholarship fund 
as memorial to, 210 ; his in- 
fluence during Civil War, 210, 
211 ; organizes Western Sanitary 
Commission, 216-218 ; appeals to 
the public for funds, 218, 219 ; 
appeals to authorities at Wash- 
ington against subordination 
Western Sanitary Commission 
to United States Sanitary Com- 
mission, 221, 222 ; reports to 
General Halleck, 223 ; exposes 
abuses, 224, 225 ; visits Confed- 
erate prisoners, 225, 226 ; goes 
East to solicit funds for Western 



Sanitary Commission, 236, 237; 
interview of, vsdth Secretary 
Stanton, 239 ; advocates schools 
for children of refugees, 259 ; 
counsels aid to freed people and 
schools for same, 262 ; appeal of, 
for refugees and freedmen, 265- 
267 ; report concerning freed peo- 
ple sent to, 267-269 ; advises es- 
tablishment " Soldiers' Orphans' 
Home," 272 ; publishes article 
on Western Sanitary Commis- 
sion, 273, 274; letter to Mr. 
Yeatman, 275 ; William G. Eliot 
memorial, and reasons therefor, 
277, 278 ; remarks on death of 
President Lincoln, 280, 281 ; 
views on reconstruction, 281, 282 ; 
correspondence with Charles 
Sumner regarding Greeley's 
election, 282-284 ; letter to Presi- 
dent Hayes regarding political 
situation in Louisiana, 285-289 ; 
to " St. Louis Republican," 289- 
291 ; views regarding exodus of 
negroes, 292-294 ; correspondence 
with General Sherman regarding 
" coming presidential contest," 
295-297 ; advocates industrial 
education in the South, 298 ; 
goes abroad a third time, 299 ; 
"social evU" reform, 300-305; 
temperance reform, 305-312 ; 
views of, regarding education and 
poKtical status of women, 312- 
314 ; interest in legislation — op- 
poses leasing system for convicts, 
314-317 ; feels responsibilities of 
higher classes to lower, 317, 318 ; 
interest in material improve- 
ments, 318-320; refuses public 
reception, 320, 321; Dr. Hey- 
wood quoted concerning, 321- 
323 ; sacrifice of intellectual pur- 
suits, 324, 325 ; publications, 325- 
327 ; sermons characterized, 327- 
329 ; regret at leaving ministry, 



INDEX 



371 



329, 330 ; ideal of ministers' vo- 
cation, 331, 332 ; views concern- 
ing Christ's life and teachings, 
332-334; "Christ's Record of 
Himself," 334, 335 ; sermon on 
" Christ and Liberty," 335-337 ; 
love of humanity inculcated, 
337-339 ; denunciation of sin, 

339, 340 ; extemporaneous speech, 

340, 341 ; views of, regarding 
prayer, 341, 342; prayers for 
special occasions, 342-345 ; "Life 
of Archer Alexander," 345-349 ; 
tribute to, from Mr. Yeatman, 
350, 351; writes "Nunc Di- 
mittis," 351, 352 ; secret of his 
power, 352, 353 ; illustrations of 
basis of principle in word and 
deed of, 353-355; patriotism, 
355 ; interest in persons individu- 
ally, 356, 357 ; dislike of praise, 
357-359 ; anecdote illustrating 
self-control of, 359 , 360; self- 
sacrifice, 360, 361 ; home life, 361, 
362 ; sense of humor, 362, 363 ; 
pastor of a large flock, 363 ; well- 
balanced character of, 364 ; in- 
scription to on memorial tablet, 
365. 

Eliot, Mrs. W. G., Jr., co-worker 
with her husband, 37 ; describes 
wedding journey and early St. 
Louis, 37-39 ; contributes to 
scholarship fund, 210. 

Everett, Edward, delivers oration 
at inauguration of Washington 
University, 86; reference to, 100; 
letter to W. G. E., 194-196. 

Federal Street Church, Boston, W. 

G. E. ordained at, 17. 
First Congregational Society of St. 

Louis, organized, 23. 
Fisher, Chaplain H. D., solicits 

contributions for freed people, 

262, 263. 

Fiske, John, quoted, 21 ; non-resi- 



dent professor of American his- 
tory at Washington University, 
113. 

Floating hospitals, 227-229, 232- 
234. 

Forbes, John Murray, letter to, 
from W. G. E., 200, 201 ; reply, 
201 ; collects funds for West- 
ern Sanitary Commission, 262. 

Fort Donelson, battle of, 228. 

Fort PiUow, battle at, 234. 

Freedmen's (Colored) Orphans' 
Home, established by Western 
Sanitary Commission, 270. 

Freedom's Memorial, 350, 351. 

Freeman, Dr. James, friend of W. 
G. E., 13 ; letter to, from W. G. 
E., 21. 

Fremont, John C, Major-General, 
164, 166, 181, 221; takes command 
Department of the West, 163 ; 
issues as Special Order Number 
159, " Suggestions " of W. G. E. 
for organization Western San- 
itary Commission, 168 ; issuance 
and revocation of emancipation 
order, 182, 183 ; interest in hu- 
manities of war, 222, 223 ; re- 
moved from command Depart- 
ment of the West, 222. 

Fremont, Mrs. Jessie Benton, let- 
ter to, from W. G. E., 166, 167; 
copies manuscript of W. G. E., 
168. 

Fugitive Slave Law, 139, 140, 148, 
157. 

Fuller, Margaret, friend of W. G. 
E., 13. 

Furness, Rev. William, officiates 
at ordination of W. G. E., 17. 

Gamble, Hamilton R., Conditional 
Unionist, 154 ; made provisional 
governor of Missouri, 161 ; let- 
ter to, from Colonel T. T. Gantt, 
172 ; organizes state militia, 173 ; 
order for enrollment of militia, 



372 



INDEX 



173 ; memorialized reg'arding as- 
sessments, 174-177 ; consequent 
action of, 177-180 ; convenes 
Missouri Convention, 191 ; atti- 
tude regarding enlistment of 
blacks, 200. 

Gannett, Rev. Ezra Stiles, D. D., 
reverence of W. G. E. for, 13. 

Gantt, Colonel Thomas T., 30, 73; 
writes to Governor Gamble re- 
garding state militia, 172. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, a promi- 
nent abolitionist, 129. 

Getty, Dr., army surgeon, 226. 

Giles, Rev. Henry, anecdote con- 
cerning, 308, 309. 

Glasgow, William, Jr., goes abroad 
with W. G. E., 43. 

Goodwin, Mr., 17. 

Grant, General Ulysses S., at Pitts- 
burg Landing, 232 ; at Vicks- 
burg, 243 ; supplies sent to, 245 ; 
interest in well-being of soldiers, 
243. 

Gratiot Street prison, renovated, 
227. 

Greeley, Carlos S., member Wes- 
tern Sanitary Commission, 218 ; a 
" model treasurer," 276. 

Greeley, Horace, Democratic nomi- 
nee for presidency, 282-284. 

Greenleaf, R. C, 237. 

Greenleaf, William, great-grand- 
father of W. G. E., Jr., 4 ; reads 
Declaration of Independence, 4. 

Halleck, H. W., Major-General, 
181, 225, 226, 231 ; letter to Gen- 
eral Curtis, 179, 180 ; approves 
work Western Sanitary Commis- 
sion, 223 ; approves plan for float- 
ing hospitals, 229 ; W. G. E. calls 
on, in Washington, 239 ; issues 
orders, for quartering of refugees 
in houses of secessionists, 253 ; 
order for assessment rebel sym- 
pathizers, 255. 



Hammond, Dr. William A., 234. 

Hardin, C. H., governor of Mis- 
souri, 317. 

Harney, WiUiam S., Brevet Major- 
General,! signs and issues procla- 
mation, 161 ; relieved from com- 
mand, 162. 

Harrison, William Henry, death 
of, 341. 

Hay, John, 202. 

Hayes, Rutherford B., letter to, 
from W. G. E., 286-291 ; his pol- 
icy of conciliation, 292 ; Sher- 
man on, 297. 

Hemenway, Mrs. Augustus (or 
Mrs. Mary), gift to Washington 
University, 92 ; interest in Amer- 
ican history, 112 ; gift from, used 
as beginning of a fund for crea- 
tion of a department of American 
history in Washington Univer- 
sity, 112. 

Henderson, Haven, 46. 

Henderson, Hon. John B., intro- 
duces in Senate bill for compen- 
sated emancipation in Missouri, 
184. 

Heywood, Rev. John, D, D., ex- 
tracts from memorial sermon, 
56, 78, 79, 130, 321-323, 328, 
341. 

Hindman, Thomas C, Major-Gen- 
eral, 173. 

Hitchcock, Ethan A., Major-Gen- 
eral, writes proclamation for 
General Harney, 161. 

Hitchcock, Hon. Henry, services 
to Law School, 93. 

How, John, director Washington 
University, 83. 

Howard, Oliver 0., Brevet Major- 
General, 259, 260. 

Hoyt, Joseph G., 100, 109; inau- 
gurated as Chancellor of Wash- 
ington University, 86. 

Hunt, Wilson P., postmaster at 
St. Louis, 7. 



INDEX 



373 



Jackson, Claiborne F., 160, 161 ; se- 
cessionist governor of Missouri, 
153, 156. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 141. 

Johnson, Dr. J. B., member of 
Western Sanitary Commission, 
218. 

King's Chapel, epitaph there, 3 ; 
W. G. E. called to pastorate of, 
44. 

King, Rev. Thomas Starr, 273. 
Krum, Hon. John M., director 
Washington University, 82. 

Leighton, Colonel George E., 365 ; 
elected president board of direc- 
tors of Washington University, 
121 ; his retirement, 121 ; author 
of inscription on memorial tablet, 
365. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 130, 153, 154, 
168, 169, 181, 183, 201, 222 ; in- 
terview of W. G. E. with, regard- 
ing Missouri state militia, 172, 
173 ; endorses memorial of W. 
G. E., 180 ; order of, regulating 
enlistment of slaves, framed by, 
in accordance with suggestion of 
W. G. E., 202 ; approves sugges- 
tion of W. G. E. that a bounty be 
paid to colored recruits, 204, 205 ; 
confirms nomination of Schofield 
as major-general, 205 ; W. G. E. 
appeals to, in person against sub- 
ordination of Western Sanitary 
Commission, and is sustained, 
221 ; W. G. E. on assassination 
of, 279-281 ; freedmen's memo- 
rial to, 349. 

Lovejoy, Elijah P., martyr to cause 
of freedom, 147, 148. 

Lyon, Nathaniel, Brigadier-Gen- 
eral, heroism of, 164, 166. 

Mann, Miss Maria R., work of, for 
freed people, 261. 



Mann, N. M., report of, to W. G. 

E., 267-269. 
Martineau, James, 329, 334, 
Mary Institute, established, 86 ; 

W. G. E. in reference to, 326. 
McCreery, Phocian R., member 

board of directors Washington 

University, 83. 
McGinniss, Hon. James, 315. 
MeadvOle Theological School, 47, 

53. 

Mellen, W. P., 264. 

Messiah, Church of, dedicated, 61 ; 
account of, 62-65 ; resignation of 
W. G. E. as pastor, 95 ; his ser- 
mon on occasion of thirty-sixth 
anniversary of, 95-97; sermon of 
W. G. E. on "Social Reform," 
133, 134 ; attitude of members 
towards slavery, 135, 136 ; ex- 
tracts from sermon on fiftieth 
anniversary of, 147-151 ; efi^ect of 
sermon on " Loyalty and Reli- 
gion," 171; prayer ofFered in, 
191 ; discourse delivered in, 192 ; 
regret of W. G. E. on resigning 
pastorate of, 299, 329, 330 ; prin- 
ciples inculcated by W. G. E. as 
pastor, 353. 

Ministry at large, 28, 62-65. 

Mission Free School of Church of 
the Messiah, 62-64. (See Boys' 
Industrial School.) 

Negroes, exodus of, 292-296. 

Newell, Rev. F. R., agent Western 
Sanitary Commission, 235, 236. 

New Orleans, emigrant steamers 
from, 235, 236. 

Newspapers: " Christian Illus- 
trated Weekly," 302; "New 
York Evening Express," 301 ; 
" New York Tribune," 283 ; " St. 
Louis Democrat " (now " Globe- 
Democrat "), 178, 179; "St. 
Louis Globe " (merged with 
" Democrat "), 315; "St. Louis 



374 



INDEX 



Republican ' ' (now ' ' Republic " ), 
180, 181, 289-291. 
Nieholls, General Francis T., 285, 
287. 

Nicolay, John G., Nicolay and 

Hay, 202. 
Noell, Hon. John W., introduces 

in House bill for compensated 

emancipation in Missouri, 184. 
" North American Review," 148, 

272, 273. 

O'Fallon, Colonel John, gifts to 
O'Fallon Polytechnic Institute, 
85. 

O'Fallon Polytechnic Institute, 85, 
93, 94. 

"Old Guard" of St. Louis, 207, 

208, 355. 
Old South Church, 112. 

Packard, S. B., 285-287. 

Palfrey, Rev. Cazneau, officiates at 
ordination of W. G. E., 17. 

Parkman, Dr., Secretary Society 
for Propagation of the Gospel, 55. 

Partridge, George, director Wash- 
ington University, 83 ; member 
"Western Sanitary Commission, 
218. 

Peabody, Miss Elizabeth, 261. 

Peabody, Rev. Ephraim, officiates 
at ordination of W. G. E„ 17. 

Pea Ridge, Ark., battle of, 229, 230. 

Pegram, George, director Wash- 
ington University, 83. 

Phelps, John S., governor of Mis- 
souri, 312. 

Phi Beta Kappa Address of W. G. 
E., quoted, 77, 78, 137. 

Phillips, WendeU, 129. 

Pittsburg Landing, Tenn., battle 
of, 229, 233. 

Plattenberg, A. W., agent West- 
ern Sanitary Commission, 230- 
232, 244, 245. 

Post, Rev. T. M., D. D., 302. 



Prairie Grove, Ark., battle of, 235. 

Price, Sterling, Major-General, 
161, 166, 173 ; threatens St. Louis, 
207 ; raid into Missouri, 229 ; cap- 
tures Pilot Knob, 258. 

Ranlett, Seth A., director Wash- 
ington University, 83. 

Reavis, L. U., condition under 
which W. G. E. writes notice of 
his book, 359. 

Refugees' Homes, 253-255, 257, 259, 
260. 

Refugees' and Freedmen's Home, 
258. 

Rex, Dr., army surgeon, 243-245. 
Rhodes, Christopher, 18-20, 23-25. 
Riddick, Colonel Thomas F., 68. 
Roosevelt, James, 239. 
Russell, Samuel, director Wash- 
ington University, 83. 

Salisbury, Mr. and Mrs. Stephen, 
342. 

Schofield, John, Major-General, 
173, 235, 262 ; issues order of as- 
sessment, 174 ; letter of W. G. 
E. to, relative to evasion of pro- 
visions of emancipation ordi- 
nance by slave-owners, 197-199 ; 
order regulating enlistment of 
slaves in Missouri, 202 ; memo- 
rial of W. G. E. to Senate con- 
cerning, 206, 207 ; gives military 
prisons into charge of Western 
Sanitary Commission, 262. 

Schuyler, Rev. M., D. D., associate 
member Western Sanitary Com- 
mission, 227. 

Shackelford, Richard C, 178. 

Sherman, William T., General, at 
Vicksbiirg, 241 ; praises work of 
Western Sanitary Commission, 
248 ; care of his soldiers, 243 ; in- 
terest in Andersonville prisoners, 

249, 250 ; views concerning war, 

250, 251 ; regarding exodus of 



INDEX 



375 



negroes, 292 ; regarding office of 
president, 296, 297 ; at Conven- 
tion, 319. 

Simmons, Dr., suggests floating 
hospitals, 228. 

Smith, James, 20, 83 ; death, 113 ; 
bequest to W. G. E., 114; me- 
morial to, 115. 

Smith, William H., gives lecture 
fund to Washington University, 
112. 

Soldiers' Homes, 251, 252. 

Soldiers' Orphans' Home, estab- 
lished and endowed by Western 
Sanitary Commission, 272. 

Stanton, Edwin M., letter of W. 
G. E. to, 203, 204 ; reply, 204 ; 
confirms and extends privileges 
Western Sanitary Commission, 
239, 240. 

Staples, Rev. Carlton A., minister 

at large, 28 ; vice-president St. 

Louis Provident Association, 64. 
Steele, Frederick, Brevet Major- 

General, 246, 247. 
Stetson, C, Scribe, 17. 
Sumner, Charles, letter to, 187 ; 

advocates election of Greeley to 

presidency, 282-284. 

Taylor, Edward (" Father "), offi- 
ciates at ordination W. G. E., 17. 

Thayer, Nathaniel, gift to Wash- 
ington University, 92 ; Nathaniel 
Thayer professorship, 92. 

Thomas, George, General, 199. 

Thomas, James S., 178, 179. 

Thompson, Thomas J., 178, 179. 

Ticknor, George, 29. 

THeston professorship, Washington 
University, 92. 

Treat, Samuel, director Washing- 
ton University, 83. 

" Uncle Tom's Cabin," 129, 349. 
United States Sanitary Commis- 
sion, organized, 212, 213 ; " His- 



tory of," 213, 214 ; theory of, 214, 
215 ; attempt to subordinate 
Western Sanitary Commission, 
221, 222. 

Vaneourt, Rev. Mr., death from 
cholera, 50. 

Ward, Rev. Carlos, minister at 

large, 28 ; distributes " Poor 

Fund," 63. 
Ware, Rev. Henry, Jr., 15, 16, 18 ; 

officiates at ordination of W. G. 

E., 17. 

Warriner, Dr., associate member 
Western Sanitary Commission, 
222. 

Washburn, C. C, Brigadier-Gen- 
eral, establishes Camp Ethio- 
pia," 260. 

Washington, Booker T., quoted, 
297, 298. 

Washington University, incorpo- 
rated as Eliot Seminary, 81 ; 
change of name, 82 ; made non- 
sectarian by constitution, 83 ; 
idea of incorporators of, practi- 
cal, 83, 84 ; impelling motives in 
founding, 84, 85 ; O'FaUon Poly- 
technic Institute, 85 ; prepara- 
tory school, 86 ; inaugurated 
as a university, 86 ; Chancellors 
Hoyt and Chauvenet, 86 ; endow- 
ment fund for, 86-88 ; Civil War 
period, 88, 89 ; appeal to friends 
in New England for funds for, 
89-92 ; Law School, 93 ; O'FaUon 
Polytechnic Institute and Li- 
brary conveyed to Public School 
Board, 93, 94 ; scientific depart- 
ment organized, 94, 95 ; death of 
Chancellor Chauvenet, 95 ; in- 
auguration of W. G. E. as Chan- 
cellor, 98-108 ; high standard of 
scholarship maintained, 109, 
110 ; lecture fund, 112, 113 ; 
made chief recipient James 



376 



INDEX 



Smith bequest, 114, 115 ; last 
formal report of W. G. E. as pre- 
sident board of directors, 115- 
121 ; death of Chancellor Eliot, 
121 ; Colonel Leighton made 
president board of directors, 
121 ; his retirement, 121 ; Mr. R. 
S. Brookings president, 122; 
large additional endowment of, 
122. 

Waterman, H. J., agent Western 
Sanitary Commission, attacked 
by guerrillas, 246, 247. 

Western Sanitary Commission, 
created to meet exigency of mo- 
ment, 214-216 ; plan of organiza- 
tion of, 216, 217 ; members of 
board of, 217, 218 ; work of, 218- 
220; United States Sanitary Com- 
mission requests subordination 
of, 220, 221 ; W. G. E. protests, 
and is sustained by authorities at 
Washington, 221, 222 ; excellence 
of general hospital system of, 
223; opposition to that system, 
224, 225 ; given charge military 
prisons, 226, 227 ; floating hos- 
pitals, 227-229, 232, 233 ; aid 
furnished by, after battles, 228- 
232 ; aid to Mississippi Naval 
Squadron, 234 ; area of work ex- 
tended by capture of Memphis, 
234, 235 ; aid rendered Schofield 
in Missouri, 235 ; appeal for funds 
in New England and response, 
236-239 ; privileges confirmed 
and extended by order Secretary 
of War, 239, 240 ; stores sent to 
Grant at Vicksburg, 242-245 ; to 



General Steele and General 
Banks, 246 ; to Sherman's army, 
248 ; to Andersonville prisoners, 
249, 250 ; soldiers' homes estab- 
lished by, 251, 252^; refugees' 
homes, 253, 255, 257, 258 ; freed- 
men's home, 258, 259 ; schools 
for refugees, 259 ; work of, for 
freed people, 261-265 ; holds Mis- 
sissippi Valley Sanitary Fair, 
265-267 ; receipts and expendi- 
tures of, 269-275, 277. 

White Cloud, steamer, burned, 47. 

Wilson, Hon. Henry, 187. 

Wise, Captain, of gunboat flotilla, 
234. 

Wyeth, George A., agent Western 
Sanitary Commission, 247. 

Yeatman, James E., president 
Western Sanitary Commission, 
217, 218 ; zeal of, 220 ; on prison 
committee, 226 ; at Pittsburg 
Landing, 233 ; visits Boston, 240 ; 
goes to Vicksburg with sanitary 
stores, 245 ; correspondence of, 
with General Sherman, 248-251 ; 
letter of, to General Howard, 
259, 260 ; report of, on condition 
of freed people, 263, 264 ; author- 
ized to carry into effect plans of 
Western Sanitary Commission, 
264 ; at Vicksburg, 269 ; refuses 
position of Commissioner Freed- 
men's National Bureau, 271, 272 ; 
views of, on slavery, 274, 275; 
letter to, from W. G. E., 277; 
proposes memorial to W. G. E., 
277 ; remarks thereon, 277, 278. 



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